Denver police officers responded to a 7-11 store on March 1 when a suspect named Christopher Cauch took two clerks hostage with a nail-pulling device. Police released the bodycam footage of the incident this week, although some of the more gruesome aspects of it have been blurred out.
The 43-year-old Cauch barricaded himself in the back of the store with two hostages and refused to come out after he had already stabbed one person. Other employees at the 7-11 directed the responding police officers to a back door that accessed the room where Cauch was holed up.
A team of four officers used a battering ram to breach the back door and enter the room. That’s when Cauch exercised the bad decision-making skills that so many criminals are known for.
Right as a police officer has entered the room and has an AR-15 just inches away from Cauch’s chest, he grabs a hostage, puts the nail-pulling tool to the man’s neck, and says, “I’m gonna cut this MFer.”
Did everyone spot Mr. Cauch’s error? That’s right! When a police officer has the barrel of their AR-15 just inches away from your heart, it’s a really bad time to announce that you’re going to kill a hostage that you’re not even holding in front of yourself as a human shield.
We tried to count the number of shots fired but it’s impossible to tell from the video. Denver police say the four officers fired 36 rounds in five seconds. We’ll take their word for it. Cauch died at the hospital, and the best news of all is that the hostages were uninjured:
