Body camera footage from fatal shooting of Grandview man released
The Lenexa Police Department released snippets of a 911 call and also body camera footage from a June incident that left a man, who was sitting behind the wheel of his car, dead.
Thursday, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said the officer who fatally shot Jose Enrique Cartagena Chacon will not face criminal charges and was justified for his use of force in the shooting.
On June 22 around 3 a.m., officers were called to the Lenexa Crossing Apartment Homes in the 12400 block of West 97th Terrace on reports of a disturbance involving a man — later identified as Chacon — with a gun.
The City of Lenexa released a video on YouTube on Thursday containing snippets of the initial 911 call reporting the incident and also body-worn camera footage, worn by police officers, from the incident.
“Although we were prepared to release this video in June, we honored a request to wait until the District Attorney had reached a decision,” the video said.
Woman dropping a friend off saw Chacon pointing a gun
In a 911 call released on Thursday, a woman calling 911 told an operator she was dropping a friend off at the apartments when she “saw a guy shooting another guy with a gun in the pool.”
An interpreter was used to translate to dispatchers, as the woman was speaking Spanish.
The woman can then be heard telling the operator she was nervous and didn’t know the exact address of the apartments, only that police needed to come. She parked nearby to call authorities, she said.
“There’s a guy pointing a gun at another guy’s forehead, I’m near the pool, but nothing has happened yet, so far,” the woman said in the 911 call.
The woman described what both men were wearing and what they looked like as operators dispatched officers to the scene, according to the 911 call.
“But I don’t live here, I just stopped to drop off a friend, that’s all,” The woman said in the 911 call. “So I said, ‘I’m going to call 911 before something happens.’”
The woman continued, telling dispatchers she moved away from the scene because she was scared.
“Put your ... hands up or I’m going to shoot you right now”
The video then switches to video and audio of body-worn camera footage. Officers can be seen arriving at the scene. Both have guns drawn.
The officers then approach Chacon’s car, where he can be seen with a gun in his lap.
“Put your(expletive) hands up,” the officer on the driver’s side of the vehicle, the video shows. “Put your ... hands up, or I’m going to shoot you right now.”
The officers, one on each side of Chacon’s car, point their guns into the vehicle. “I see that gun,” the officer on the driver’s side of the vehicle said, as shown by the video.
In the video, Chacon picks up the gun and officers back away from the vehicle yelling at Chacon to put his weapon down. As they back away from the car, the officer on the driver’s side of the vehicle fires eight shots into the car.
The officer immediately dispatches that shots had been fired.
“61 subjects down. Still had the gun. He’s gonna be in the driver’s seat,” the officer that fired the gun said in the video.
Once the scene was secured, officers began performing life-saving measures on Chacon, according to the video. Paramedics then transported him to a nearby hospital.
“As you saw, situations requiring the use of force can unfold in a matter of seconds with little to no warning,” Lenexa Police Department Chief Dawn Layman said in the video. “Our officers are trained to respond to these rapidly evolving threats with professionalism and sound judgment.”
Last month, The Star reported that the officer who shot Chacon was back on the job. He was working in a “modified duty capacity,” until a verdict was reached. according to a police spokesperson.
Chacon, 25, was known by loved ones as Enrique. Officers informed his relatives, who he lived with in Grandview, around 7 a.m. that morning, that Chacon had been shot.
Chacon’s relatives were able to see, in August, the body camera footage from the shooting.
