FARGO (KFGO) – In the first few seconds after what had been nearly two straight minutes of gunfire on a busy south Fargo thoroughfare on a midsummer Friday afternoon, dash cam footage from inside the patrol car of Officers Andrew Dotas and Tyler Hawes lays bare an eerie scene.
Sirens can be heard in the distance and the squad car’s radio crackles a time or two, but otherwise it’s quiet. A lone car sits about 50 yards ahead, in the middle of 25th Street. It’s one from the crash the officers had arrived to investigate just minutes earlier, its airbag deployed. Otherwise the street is empty.
Off to the side, Officers Zach Robinson and Michael Clower can be seen, moving around the far side of a car in a parking lot, guns drawn. The sound of sirens gets louder. A Fargo firefighter sprints by, medical bag in hand, another firefighter on their heels. They run to the bodies of three officers, one on the sidewalk, two others in the grass, all of them hit in the ambush-style shooting.
And then, within moments, the sirens are blaring and seemingly every vehicle in the Fargo Police fleet descends on the scene. Several patrol cars pull in front of the squad, blocking the view of the boulevard where the bodies of Officers Jake Wallin, Dotas, and Hawes lay. Others squeal into the parking lot next to where Clower’s car still sits running, having arrived just as Robinson was firing the final shots that would neutralize the shooter. Nearly a dozen more squads arrive in quick succession, many of their doors opening with officers starting to jump out before the vehicles come to a complete stop. Officers on foot run by at a full sprint. Still more vehicles fill the once-empty street until it is nearly jammed. A small lane is left open for an ambulance to snake in and out, to transport the injured officers to the hospital.
“Send everybody,” Robinson had pleaded over his radio as he exchanged gunfire with the shooter. The dash-cam footage suggests Fargo Police did just that.
As the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation prepares to release its final summary report on the July 14 ambush-style shooting by 37-year-old Mohamad Barakat, which left Officer Jake Wallin dead and Officers Dotas and Hawes, and civilian Karlee Koswick seriously injured, state Attorney General Drew Wrigley has given requesting media outlets a preview of some of the previously unreleased footage from that day.
Wrigley says besides the dash-cam footage, security camera video which shows Barakat’s movements in his car prior to the shooting, and excerpts from the body cams of officers Wallin, Dotas, and Hawes may be released when the summary report is available, which should be within the coming weeks.
The body cameras of Officers Dotas and Hawes show that the incident started out with all the trappings of a routine crash investigation. The two officers park their squad car behind a firetruck which has already arrived on scene. They can be seen greeting firefighters. Hawes, who is still in training, dons on a yellow safety vest with a little ribbing from the veteran Dotas, who can be heard whistling a tune as he moves between his duties.
Dotas looks on as Hawes interviews Koswick, the crash victim from the second car. She tells Hawes she is not injured but a little shaken. Dotas asks the driver of the first car in the crash to pull it into the parking lot in order to clear the scene. Koswick’s car is not operable and will have to wait for a tow.
Footage from Wallin’s body cam shows he and Robinson arriving on scene and radioing Dotas to ask him if they should stay in their squad car to help with traffic control or come assist. Dotas says they could use some help interviewing crash victims. Wallin gets assigned interviews of the passengers in the first vehicle. He takes out a notebook and pen, and he, Dotas, and Hawes walk up the grassy embankment toward the parking lot where the crash victims are waiting.
Previously-released footage from Robinson’s body cam gives the fullest picture of what happened next, including the two minute gunfight between Robinson and Barakat, but there are small details from the body cams of the other officers that are notable in the footage reviewed by KFGO News and other outlets last week.
Barakat’s first shots hit Dotas and Hawes. When Hawes is hit, his body cam flies off and up into the air before hitting the ground and bouncing a few times before rolling down the sidewalk where it comes to a rest. The frame-by-frame footage is a chaotic series of angles of the scene, including Koswick still standing on the sidewalk talking with her father on the phone.
On Wallin’s body cam, the clearest view of Barakat is shown. The driver’s side window of Barakat’s car is open. He can been seen reaching over to retrieve a gun and then his .223 rifle is seen sticking out of the open window on the driver’s side. A small puff of smoke from Barakat’s gun after he fires the first shots at Hawes and Dotas is visible as Wallin crouches down into a defensive stance upon hearing the shots.
Wallin then turns toward a small tree which is right behind him. His notebook and pen are seen falling to the ground as he reaches for his service weapon. As he rounds the tree, his gun is seen coming up in his right hand and his left hand reaches up to allow him to squeeze the trigger and get a round off at almost the exact same time he is hit.
Footage from Dotas’ body cam shows him go down quickly when he is first hit, but he struggles and pulls himself up. His hand is seen reaching out to point in the direction of Wallin, who has just been hit, before he collapses again onto his back, and blue sky is all that is captured on the cam until emergency responders reach him about two minutes later.
Back at Dotas and Hawes’ squad car, the dash cam shows the fire truck – which was parked in front of them and about to leave the scene before the shooting started – pull into the right driving lane, which had until that point been left open for traffic flow. It quickly backs down the street to block the lane so that no unsuspecting cars drive into the crossfire that has now begun between Barakat and Robinson.
When the gunfire finally stops, Robinson and Clower put on gloves and handcuff Barakat, who appears to still be moving despite being mortally wounded. After securing the shooter, Robinson tears off the gloves and runs over to where the downed officers are.
For over a minute, body cam footage shows Robinson holding the hand of Dotas while firefighters cut off the fallen officer’s vest to find and tend to his wounds.
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