Newly released body camera footage shows the moments a Raleigh police officer shot a suspect fatally in the head.
On March 27, Raleigh police shot an killed a gunman they claim was shooting at police and into parked cars near Ligon Magnet Middle School.
On April 3, police released a 5-day report on the shooting and named Jorge Luis Vega-Lesama as the suspect who had been killed.
The newly released video show Sgt. R.A. Sirianna and Officers M.L. Adams and P.J. Fernstrum when they collectively fired seven shots at Vega-Lesama, one fatally striking him in the head.
Officers who fired at him as he shot at cars and police around 7 a.m. in the 700 block of Cumberland Street, just east of downtown, according to the report.
The video footage from Sirianna’s body camera shows him exiting his police vehicle with a rifle. He is repeatedly fired at, and cannot determine where the suspect is shooting from. Within a minute of the gunfire starting from the suspect, Sirianna fired four shots, killing the suspect.
In the video, he is heard breathing heavily as he and the other officers approach Vega-Lesama who is seen laying on his back, bleeding onto a driveway. Siranna kicks away Vega-Lesama’s gun and continues to aim his weapon at him, accompanied by Adams and Fernstrum.
When Sirianna, Adams and Fernstrum arrived on the scene moments earlier, they identified a man matching the suspect’s description.
Vega-Lesama began firing at the officers as they got out of their cars, and they reported “shots fired” over their radios.
Adams fired at him three times, the report states before Siranna began firing.
Sirianna called for emergency medical services at 7:07 a.m.
EMS arrived roughly six minutes later and took Vega-Lesama to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.