A Tennessee sheriff has been caught on camera ordering his officers to shoot dead a fleeing suspect instead of trying to ram him, seemingly because he didn’t want his cars to get damaged.
Last April, Michael Dial, 33, led police on a long pursuit over county lines before an officer shot him in the head, killing him.
It started in DeKalb County and ended in White County after Sheriff Oddie Shoupe gave the order of shoot to kill.
Dial was unarmed and police had tried to pull him over for driving on a suspended license having spotted him in a 1976 pickup towing a loaded trailer.
The fatal shooting is now the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by Dial’s widow, Robyn Spainhoward Dial, agaisnt local law enforcement claiming excessive force.
The focal point of the complaint is body camera footage, first obtained by NewsChannel5, that appears to show White County Sheriff Shoupe reflecting that he ordered the shoot to kill over fears his cars would get destroyed.
A sheriff has been caught on camera ordering his officers to shoot dead a fleeing suspect instead of trying to ram him seemingly because he didn’t want his cars to get damaged
Michael Dial (left and right), 33, was fatally shot in the head in April 2017 after leading deputies on a lengthy two-county chase
The chase was not a high-speed pursuit, with officers only getting up to a top speed of 50mph.
Sheriff Shoupe was not involved in the chase, but it was him who gave the gave orders to a radio dispatcher authorizing his colleagues to shoot Dial.
The radio dispatcher said: ‘Use deadly force if necessary. Take the subject out by any means necessary.’
That led to a deputy pulling out his gun on Highway 111 and minutes later he pulled the trigger having maneuvered Dial’s pickup off the road.
Another deputy started shooting, and Dial was hit in the head.
But new video obtained by Scripps station WTVF and Channel 5 WPTV shows the sheriff and his colleagues jovially recalling the chain of events.
It has come from a bodycam which neither the sheriff nor his deputies realized was on, but when it was thrown in the back of a squad car, it picked up on their conversations as they headed from the scene of the shooting back to the precinct.
Sheriff Shoupe can be heard saying: ‘I said: “Take him out, I don’t give a s***.”
‘I said: “Don’t ram him, shoot him.” F*** that s***, they’re going to tear my cars up.
‘And I’ve already got two cars torn up again.’
Last April, Michael Dial led police on a long pursuit over county lines before an officer shot him in the head. It started in DeKalb County and ended in White County after Tennessee Sheriff Oddie Shoupe gave the order of shoot to kill
He takes a call on his cellphone and tells the person on the other line that one of his colleagues has had to go home because he’d forgotten his teeth.
The sheriff says he would be back in five to ten minutes and then makes a second call asking for someone to fix him a coolers with Cokes and iced water.
On the phone to a third person, he says, ‘He’s dead’, and then appears to say it was no more than the perpetrator deserved.
‘He tore our cars all to hell. He tried to go through the back window with that truck,’ the sheriff said.
Talking about the deputy who pulled the trigger, Shoupe said he ‘took it hard’.
‘If he can’t take it he needs to get out. He’s in the big league,’ he said.
Speaking to a fourth person, Shoupe describes how the cars are going to have to be sent to the body shop.
‘You know those units we had fixed? Well, we’re going to have to get them fixed again.
‘Our units tried to stop him, he rammed the city officer, tried to kill him, he went over the side of it, went over the back of it.’
Dial was unarmed and police had tried to pull him over for driving on a suspended license having spotted him in a 1976 pickup towing a loaded trailer. But the fugitive was unarmed and his wife Robyn is now suing, and her case will be strengthened by bodycam footage seemingly showing Shoupe (pictured) reflecting that he ordered the shoot to kill over fears his cars would get destroyed
The sheriff appears to be talking excitedly about the incident, and can be heard accusing the driver of being on meth.
‘This was a hell of a pursuit,’ he said.
‘I love this s***, I thrive on it.’
The attorney, David Weissman, working with Dial’s wife told WPTV the deputies had no reason to shoot his client’s husband.
He said: ‘I don’t know how you can thrive on taking a human life. That’s not law enforcement.
‘If that’s the mentality of the highest policy maker in the county, that’s scary.’
Robyn Dial is still coming to terms with her loss, and the new video has thrown up fresh questions.
When asked why she thought her husband didn’t stop, she said: ‘He was scared. I know him enough to know that.
‘When I wake up every day and he’s not there, it’s like going through it all over again.’
The District Attorney initially ruled the killing was lawful and justified because Dial was a ‘dangerous and unstable subject’.
In spite of the new evidence emerging, the DA is sticking by the original judgement, but the lawsuit is focusing on the bodycam footage.