Orlando police release body camera video of deadly shootout during traffic stop
By: The Orlando Police Department released bodycam video Thursday showing the May 18 shootout during a traffic stop that ultimately resulted in the death of a 28-year-old man.
Police released body camera video from the two officers who attempted to pull over Carlos Delano Dafill Roberts Jr.
Both videos begin inside the unmarked police cruiser the officers were traveling in prior to the traffic stop.
The audio in the video of the male officer who was driving begins about one minute in at which point the officers have already started the traffic stop. A siren can be heard before the cruiser is put in park, the video shows.
“He’s moving around a lot,” the male officer can be heard saying on the video.
About 1:10 into the video, the first shots can be heard before the officer who is driving even steps out of the cruiser. The video shows the officer who was driving ducks down and immediately runs to the back of the cruiser for cover before drawing his gun to return fire.
“Shots fired,” the officer can be heard shouting into his radio as he continues to return fire, the video shows.
The male officer completely empties his clip and reloads as the SUV that was pulled over can be seen in the video driving off.
The video shows the officer speaking with dispatchers.
“I almost got shot,” the female officer said about 2:30 into the video.
“I know,” the male officer replied.
“That’s pretty bad,” female officer can be heard saying in the video.
About 2:40 into the video, the male officer walks closer to the driver’s side window, which was damaged by the gunfire.
About 3:40 into the video, additional units begin to arrive. The remainder of the video largely shows the officers giving their accounts of what happened, taping off the scene and directing traffic.
The Orlando Police Department released bodycam video Thursday showing the May 18 shootout during a traffic stop that ultimately resulted in the death of a 28-year-old man.
In the body camera video of the female officer, the audio picks up about a minute into the video.
At 1:07 in the video, the officer steps out of the cruiser. At 1:08 in the video, Roberts can briefly be seen standing outside his SUV, pointing a gun at the female officer.
Gunfire is heard in the video and the female officer drops to the ground for cover.
At 1:13, the female officer is seen drawing her weapon and returning fire as she backs toward the back of the cruiser.
“We had somebody just shoot at us. Shots fired,” the female officer can be heard saying at 1:23 in the video. The passenger side window of the cruiser is cracked and splintered in the video.
“Are you OK?” the male officer can be heard saying off-camera at 1:27 in the video.
“Yeah, I’m good. I’m good,” the female officer responded.
At 3:39 in the video, you can see where one of the bullets hit the passenger side door of the cruiser, which the female officer used for cover.
After getting back into his SUV, Roberts crashed a short distance down the road. Police said responding units caught up with him and provided aid until Orlando firefighters could arrive.
Roberts died in the hospital about two weeks later.
Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolón said shortly after the shooting that the officers were fired at before they could even get out of their vehicle. The body camera video appears to back that up.
Despite being in an unmarked cruiser, the officers were wearing police uniforms in the video and appeared to have their emergency lights on during the shootout.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting.