The Middlesex district attorney’s office released dramatic video footage Monday that appeared to show a knife-wielding suspect charging at an Everett police officer, who fatally shot the man in a busy intersection on the afternoon of April 21.
The shooting of Mario Mejia Martinez, 48, a Salvadoran immigrant and father of seven, was captured by surveillance cameras near 432 Broadway.
Mayor Carlo DeMaria said that the footage showed Mejia Martinez “clearly running at the officer, with the knife, intending to kill him or do him harm.”
One clip shows Mejia Martinez removing what officials say is a knife from his back pocket as an officer approaches on Broadway. The officer backs away, holding his service weapon in his right hand and pointing it at the ground.
Mejia Martinez waves his arms at the officer, now standing farther away, near the middle of the intersection. The officer points his left hand and then raises his right with his weapon pointed toward Mejia Martinez. He takes another step toward the officer.
Mejia Martinez then runs at the officer, who fires at him when the men are no more than a few feet apart.
Authorities also released audio of 911 callers who reported minutes before the deadly encounter that Mejia Martinez was walking back and forth on Broadway and talking to himself, and that he had a knife in his pocket.
In addition, officials released audio of the officer, who was not identified, repeatedly telling Mejia Martinez to “drop the knife” before the shooting.
“These videos will give the public access to preliminary facts while we continue to conduct a full, fair and thorough investigation into this matter,” District Attorney Marian T. Ryan said in a statement. “At the conclusion of the investigation we will be releasing a full report.”
Robert Warren, a lawyer for Mejia Martinez’s family, said Monday that relatives question whether deadly force was necessary.
“They’re still very upset about what happened,” he said.
Warren noted that footage showed a cruiser pulling up to the scene immediately after Mejia Martinez was shot, leading family members to question whether the first officer could have waited for backup to arrive before confronting him.
Ryan’s office, which investigates every fatal police-involved shooting in the county, also released a detailed timeline of the encounter, based on its analysis of the surveillance footage.
■ At 4:09 p.m.: Mejia Martinez is seen “pacing about” on the sidewalk at Norwood and Broadway.
■ 4:33: The officer arrives and “reaches conversation distance” with Mejia Martinez.
■ One second later: The officer “is backing away” into the intersection of Broadway and Norwood Street, and four seconds after that, “his path to retreat is obstructed by [a] car” in the road.
■ Seven seconds later: The officer has his gun unholstered and pointed at the ground. . . . he makes hand gestures at Mejia Martinez and also grabs his radio with his left hand.
■ Seconds later: “Mejia Martinez steps off the curb, hands raised and waving in the Officer’s direction, closing in on the Officer, and charging crouched down. The Officer raised his weapon as Mejia Martinez stepped from the curb and began the advance.”
■ Just before 4:34 p.m., 25 seconds after the officer first arrived: Mejia Martinez falls to the ground after being shot.
Also Monday, Ryan’s office released a photo of what they said was the knife Mejia Martinez was holding during the shooting. The knife is lying on the ground in the photo.
Audio of 911 recordings released Monday also shed light on Mejia Martinez’s actions in the minutes leading up to the shooting.
“He has a knife sticking out, out of his pocket, and he’s like, talking to himself,” a woman told the dispatcher. “He seemed, like, I don’t know — he’s angry.”
In another clip, a woman said Mejia Martinez is “acting weird. He’s talking to everybody that’s walking by and there’s some, like, there looks like a knife sticking out of his pocket.”
The woman continues, “I just want to make sure, you know, he’s not, like, ready to fight with someone because he looks like he’s not.”
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