10 APR 2016
Intense and dramatic footage of an Ohio policeman doing everything he can to not kill a man begging for ‘suicide by cop’ demonstrates the ability of law enforcement officers to arrest suspects without resorting to deadly force.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Glendale Police Chief Dave Warman commended Officer Josh Hilling and his fellow officers for not killing Pablo Aleman, 46, after the drifter pulled a large knife and begged to be killed while threatening them.
In the 13-minute long video, Hilling can be seen questioning Aleman after stopping him and telling him it was illegal to walk along the side of the freeway.
Things took an ugly turn when Hilling attempted to pat Aleman down, only to have the man pull a 10-inch knife and take a swipe at him.
Hilling responded with one shot to Aleman’s gut before backing up and calling for help as Aleman picked himself up off the ground, shouting: “Kill me! Kill me now, motherf*cker!”
Over the next few minutes Aleman continued to advance on Hilling, alternately screaming ” Kill me,” and “I’ll kill someone else,” while waving his knife.
Hilling can be heard yelling at Aleman to get on the ground, saying, “Just get down, we don’t want to,” and “Sir, please, just drop the knife. Sir, let us help you!”
According to Chief Warman, Hilling and other responding officers showed remarkable restraint.
“He could have unloaded on him if he wanted to,” Warman said of Hilling. “He had every right to but he thought to himself that he could stall him long enough after firing that one shot for our guys to get there and support him.”
Warman himself was one of the responding officers and watched it all go down.
“I had an open shot at him and he began to charge my other officer who was on the right,” Warman told The Daily Beast. “I was forming a triangle between the two [officers] and for a brief second I thought I was going to have to put this guy down just to keep him from hurting somebody else.”
“He got to his knees again and I knew at that time as long as we could keep backing up—we had a lot of highway behind us—as long as we could keep backing up eventually he’s going to wear out and go down,” he added.
Aleman eventually went to ground, laying face-down and crying as Hilling cuffed him while muttering an exhausted, “F*ck.”
According to Warman, police in Maryland have been searching for Aleman for allegedly killing his roommate, and that the knife the man was waving had dried blood on it.
Since the video has been broadcast, the chief said he’s had requests from around the country requesting a copy of the body-cam tape for training purposes. “
“Hopefully that could make a difference to some of these young kids coming out,” he said.
Watch the video below posted to YouTube by WCPO: