'I'm Shot! I'm Shot!': Video Captures Shooting that Injured Mo. Officers

An 18-minute edited video released by the St. Louis County Police Department includes footage and audio of a chase and gunfight that wounded one officer in the leg and critically injured another.

March 17, 2022

5 min read

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By Erin Heffernan

Source St. Louis Post-Dispatch

FERGUSON, MO—Gunfire pops and a police officer calls out as sirens wail on video footage released Wednesday of a Jan. 26 police chase and shootout in Ferguson that left two officers injured and another man dead.

"I'm shot! I'm shot!," the officer shouts in edited audio from police radio traffic.

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St. Louis County police released the 18-minute edited video capturing the moment a St. Louis police officer called for help, as well as portions of the high-speed chase that led up to the shootings.

The video includes a police narrative of the shooting along with parts of the radio traffic and dashboard camera footage showing St. Louis police officers chasing for more than 4 minutes a white Toyota 4Runner that, police say, was linked to a homicide hours earlier.

The chase went from north St. Louis into Ferguson, where four men ran from the car, according to police accounts.

While officers attempted to catch the group, one of the men, 23-year-old Equan Hopson, was killed and two officers were shot, including Colin Ledbetter, whose critical injuries left him hospitalized for more than a month.

Nobody camera footage of the shooting was included in the release because the St. Louis officers' body cameras were not recording at the time of the shooting, according to St. Louis County police spokesperson Sgt. Tracy Panus.

"We do not know the reason as to why they were not recording," Panus said.

St. Louis police said in a statement Wednesday that once the investigation into the shooting is complete, the department will "address any policy compliance issues, including those pertaining to the body-worn camera policy."

St. Louis County Lt. Col. Stephen Sack, commander of the division of criminal investigation, gives an account of the shooting in the 18-minute video.

According to Sack:

St. Louis officers got a 911 call around 12:52 p.m. reporting four men wearing ski masks inside a white Toyota 4Runner in the Rivertrails Apartments complex in the city's Baden neighborhood.

Responding officers "immediately recognized" that the Toyota was wanted in connection with a homicide from the night before on Natural Bridge Avenue.

In that killing, police have said robbers approached a group of four people about 1 a.m. Jan. 26 outside Diana's Royal Palace, a bar at 4266 Natural Bridge Avenue in the Greater Ville neighborhood.

The men announced a robbery and took some of their property. A security guard at the business fired shots, killing one of the suspected robbers.

About 12 hours later, officers attempted to stop the Toyota when it sped off on Riverview Boulevard to Jennings Station Road and eventually onto West Florissant Avenue.

Video footage released Wednesday shows the Toyota at some points crossing into oncoming traffic lanes and leaving the road to drive on the grass.

In the video, officers can be heard updating dispatchers on the Toyota's progress until it comes back onto the road with four flat tires near West Florissant Avenue and Lang Drive in Ferguson.

"He's gonna wreck out," said one officer, whose name was not released by county police.

The officer continues: "I got the driver."

Dashcam footage shows a passenger in the Toyota jumping out of the car and dropping a pistol, before picking it up and running into the nearby neighborhood.

At least four officers chase him, and within a few seconds gunshots can be heard over the police car's sirens.

"Shots fired! Shots fired! I'm shot! I'm shot!" a St. Louis officer can be heard yelling over the police radio. "Shots fired. Get all cars to county! Need cars here. Secure our cars."

The recording ends with dispatchers promising to send EMS to the scene.

A 28-year-old St. Louis officer, whose name has not been released by the department, was struck in the leg. Ledbetter was shot multiple times, including in the stomach.

Ledbetter required lifesaving surgery after the shooting; he was released from the hospital Feb. 22.

Hopson was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Sack said in the video Wednesday that officers fired 34 shots and Hopson had fired all the rounds in his pistol, which officers found near him after the shooting.

That same day, police arrested two of the Toyota's three other passengers: August Burns, 23, of Florissant, and Clyde Thomas, 35, of Farmington.

The third man in the car, Johnny Lewis, 23, was arrested more than a month later on March 11 by Las Vegas police in Nevada.

All three surviving passengers were charged with resisting arrest. Burns is also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm. St. Louis County police allege he was in possession of a shotgun that fell out of the Toyota at the scene.

{div}The video released Wednesday is the third briefing video issued under St. Louis County's new footage policy.

The St. Louis County police board enacted the order in December in an effort to make the department more transparent, following recommendations by outside consultant, Teneo.

To develop its policy, St. Louis County police worked with the Los Angeles Police Department, which makes similar critical-incident disclosures. The county added a staffer to meet a self-imposed 45-day deadline to release such videos.

The video of the Jan. 26 shooting was released within 48 days. Panus said the delay was in part because one of the passengers in the car remained at large until last week.

The shooting of the two officers came in the same week two other St. Louis police officers were struck by a vehicle while responding to a crash on Interstate 64.

Less than two weeks earlier, St. Louis firefighter Benjamin Polson was killed in the line of duty.

"I'm asking the public to pray for our officers," police Chief John Hayden said in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. "This is a very rough time for law enforcement and for the fire department as well."

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