Video: 2 Va. Police Officers Injured in Harrowing Traffic Stop with Gunman
What to know
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Two Fairfax County police officers were wounded when a 36-year-old man began shooting during a traffic stop for an expired safety inspection sticker.
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"Go back, sit in the f-ing car and leave," the suspect is heard in a tense exchange with officers leading up to the shooting that was captured on body camera footage.
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A single round from the suspect's gun went through one officer's biceps and another officer's forearm before a third officer returned fire, fatally shooting the man.
By Muri Assunção
Source New York Daily News
Newly released bodycam footage shows a dramatic traffic stop in Virginia that ended with two officers wounded and a gunman dead.
The wild encounter occurred on April 23, when officers from the Fair Oaks District station pulled over a man driving a 1999 Toyota Corolla.
As soon as one of the officers walks toward the vehicle, the driver, later identified as 36-year-old Jamal Wali, says he had a gun.
“I am armed, I’ll let you know,” Wali tells the officer, before asking him why he had been pulled over.
When the cop tells him he was driving with an expired safety inspection sticker, he says that he’s aware.
“Call Joe Biden or call George Bush,” Wali responds, visibly upset.
He also says he doesn’t have a driver’s license before telling the officer to “go back, sit in the f–ing car and leave.”
After a few minutes of a heated exchange, Wali is seen in the video reaching for his firearm and opening fire.
He fired a single bullet that went through the biceps of one of the officers and the forearm of the other, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said at a news conference on Friday.
A third officer, Ian Lachapelle, who had just arrived at the scene, shot and killed the suspect, Davis said.
Wali, a father of four, worked with American military forces overseas before 2014, providing translation services, according to Davis.
“It is always regrettable when a life is lost,” he told reporters. “The impact on those children is unimaginable.”
The two wounded officers, FCPD veterans with 18 and 19 years of experience, were taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
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