Shocking footage has emerged of two police officers shooting dead a mentally ill teen after he ran at them with an 11.25-inch knife while begging to die.
Jeremy Holmes, 19, was confronted by two police officers near the Colorado State University campus in Fort Collins on July 1 after threatening to murder his brother and sister-in-law.
‘He just said you’re going to lose either two sons today or one,’ his mom, Susan, told an emergency dispatcher, according to the Coloradoan. ‘I’m just so horrified. I’m just so horrified.’
Tragic: Jeremy Holmes, 19 (right) is seen on this bodycam footage advancing on Cpl. Phil Morris in Fort Collins, Colorado, on July 1. Morris repeatedly begged him to drop his knife
Attack: Holmes rushed Morris (left) when the officer reached for his taser. Morris and another officer fired on Holmes with their guns and killed him (right). Holmes had begged to die
The footage shows Colorado State University police Cpl. Phil Morris stepping out of his car to confront Holmes, who is muttering about dying in a flat monotone.
Morris begs Holmes to drop his weapon, telling him that there are ‘lots of options’ as he backs away from the advancing teen.
But Holmes doesn’t stop, instead saying ‘My life is over – kill me now,’ and ‘Killing my brother will be my goal until I die.’
Morris tells Holmes to drop the knife 40 times as Fort Collins Police Services officer Erin Mast arrives and also draws her weapon.
With Mast covering him, Morris tries to put away his gun and draw his Taser – at which point Morris charges him.
Mast’s bodycam shows her firing at the teen a split second before Morris pulls his gun again and also fires several times.
Holmes drops to the floor and Morris continues telling him to drop the knife as the video ends.
Holmes was pronounced dead at Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland.
Dangerous: This is the 11.25-inch hunting knife that Holmes was carrying. His mom told 911 that he had told her he would stab his brother to death if cops didn’t shoot him first
Shot: This is the bodycam of Fort Collins Police Services officer Erin Mast. She and Morris both fired on Holmes (left). The police said the killing was justified and Morris’ restraint ‘impressive’
Dead: Holmes (seen on ground) was pronounced dead in hospital. His mom said that the THC in cannabis had driven him insane, and that his death was ‘unnecessary and preventable’
Fort Collins Police Interim Chief Terry Jones said Holmes’ death was ‘unfortunate’ but that the cops had no choice, saying Morris’s restraint was ‘impressive’.
He said that any armed suspect within 21 feet of an officer is considered lethal, but ‘but if you notice in Officer Mast’s video just how close Mr. Holmes got to [Morris], it was surprising the threat stopped as fast as it did.’
Holmes was walking a mile-and-a-half route from his parents’ home at the corner of Drake Road and College Avenue to his brother and sister-in-law’s place at Aggie Village Apartments when he was stopped.
Susan Holmes told 911 that ‘He’s got mental health issues that have been growing for the last few months just dramatically. … There’s no reason for him to be doing this.’
She added that he’d been voluntarily complying with police mental health evaluations in the weeks before the call.
‘I’ve been trying to help him, but there’s something wrong with him,’ she said.
After the shooting, she said in a statement that the police had used ‘excessive force’ and that her son’s death was ‘unnecessary and preventable.’
She also attributed his apparent psychosis to ‘severe drug reaction to the THC in cannabis’.
‘My son was never a criminal until the DA criminalized him after he was killed by police,’ she said.
However, Jones said that Holmes’ death, while ‘unfortunate’, was the inevitable result of his actions.
Help: She said she had tried to help Holmes, who had been complying with police mental health evaluations prior to his death