tv Caught on Camera MSNBC June 1, 2014 2:00pm-3:01pm PDT
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ngs options, download the xarelto® patient center app, call 1-888-xarelto, or visit teamxarelto.com. around the country -- >> put that gun down or i will kill you! >> -- police officers are trained to expect the unexpected. from harrowing high-speed chases. >> if we got into an accident at those speeds, somebody usually gets terminated. >> to terrifying traffic stops. >> i really thought he was going to run. i certainly had no idea that he
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was about to pull a gun. >> one officer's chilling encounter on a bridge. >> he kind of crawled up my body, bit part of my eyebrow off. >> another trying to escape from a powerful storm. >> boom, like a hot knife through butter, that tornado came right across the hood of his car. >> unbelievable scenes all caught on dashboard camera. "caught on camera: dash cam diaries." a roadside stop turns violent in an instant when a man suddenly draws a gun. august 29th, 2009. greensboro, north carolina. corporal wes mecham is patroling
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at 4:00 a.m. when he spots a man walking on the side of the road. >> i had traveled this road, i couldn't tell you how many times on night shift throughout my career and never -- all those times i travel that had road seen anybody walking that time of night. >> corporal mecham wonders if his car has broken down and he's walking to get help. his dash cam turns on automatically. >> i'm not saying you're doing anything wrong, i'm just asking. we don't get too many people walking this time of night. i said, sir, you mind if i speak to you? he was very compliant. very polite. talked to me in a friendly manner. >> mecham asks to see i.d. and even cracks joke. >> you've been walking a while. them are some wet shoes. >> the man explains he's walking to go buy a soda. aside from the late hour, this doesn't seem unusual to corporal mecham. >> just going to get something to drink or something to eat? >> i'm going to get a soda, sir. >> okay, that's cool.
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>> what is odd, however, is the man's i.d. >> is that your i.d. right there? >> yes, sir. >> can you hand it to me, please? >> yes, sir. >> okay, thank you. man, you got a haircut and a shave since this was taken, ain't you? >> the picture and the i.d. seemed very strange to me. he had a full beard, very scraggly. it was a rough looking picture. you can i have me just one second? i'll be right back with you. >> the man gives his name as daniel roy smith and the corporal heads back to his cruiser to radio in the information. everything seems to be in order. corporal mecham still has to check one more thing. >> daniel roy smith, black male. 5/30/54. i typed in his i.d. number and ran a check through dmv. he's disturbed by what he sees. >> on the screen it showed he was wanted by the u.s. marshals office out of winston-salem. >> but mecham isn't sure it was the same daniel roy smith.
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>> he was so friendly. he was so polite. i couldn't imagine if he knew he was wanted he would have handed my his i.d. that's what caught me off guard. >> the corporal sees daniel waiting patiently in front of the cruiser. if he were wanted by police, wouldn't he try to escape? >> why is he being so compliant? why is he sticking around? why isn't he making a run for it? all those things make me think i got the wrong guy. >> he decides to question him further. >> let me ask you something. i'm going to be honest with you. are you supposed to be in a half way house or something like that? okay, you sure about that. because we're checking on something right now but it looks like -- >> that's something i regret. giving him the heads up that i knew he was wanted. i wished i had not done that. >> you don't have any weapons or anything on you, do you? >> i asked him to put his satchel thing, little day planner on the hood of the car. i wanted to pat him down for weapons. >> mecham already inspected the inside of the satchel when he smith had shown him his i.d. >> i looked down inside it.
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what i saw is i didn't think anything could hurt me. i didn't realize that there was another pocket on the bottom of the planner and i never saw him turn the planner over and unzip it. >> lay the satchel right there. >> when mecham asks him to put the satchel down, it sets smith off. >> well, you might have a . warrant on you. >> a warrant? >> when he started backing up, i immediately knew then, that's a telltale sign of when someone is not compliant that they're the guy you're looking for. >> corporal mecham pleads with him to stop. don't do this. don't do this. >> i really thought he was going to run, and then a foot chase would ensue and possibly him be tasered, different things like that. that's what i meant when i said let's don't do this. don't do this, mr. smith. i certainly had no idea he was about to pull a gun. >> without warning smith reaches into his satchel and pulls out a revolver. >> he pulled it out. i saw the barrel.
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i immediately started backing up as quickly as i could to create some distance and to get my gun out. >> corporal mecham backs up and out of the camera's view and st stumbles to the ground. >> when he was yelling at me to roll over, my blood went cold. that's when i knew i didn't have any time left. i had to go for my gun right then. >> lying flat on his back, mecham quickly pulls out his gun. >> he fired the first shot, and i can still to this day, i can see the muzzle flash. i can smell the smoke. i can hear the boom. i can hear it all. >> but mecham is not hit and begins firing back. >> i know all total i hit him five times. i don't know how many hit him as he was standing over me and how many may have struck him as he was running away. >> as corporal smith unloads, daniel smith runs for cover in a ditch.
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>> he turned to his left to get away and i kept shooting. as soon as he hit the ditch, i jumped to my feet. my first instinct was to call for help. >> it's cool. >> but then in that instant mecham remembers a video he saw in rookie school. it was a 1992 traffic stop in south carolina with a state trooper named mark kotz. >> 21! >> trooper kotz was shot, called in for help, and the suspect was laying in front of him, and he got shot and he died. and that video immediately went through my mind, get cover. get behind something. and i sprinted for the back of my patrol car, and as soon as i got to the back of it, he knelt up in the ditch and fired three more shots. >> 331, signal zero. i've been shot at, and i have hit the subject. get on the ground! get on the ground! >> a few miles away, deputy sheriff ron simmons hears
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corporal mecham's call for help. >> he was saying words to the effect, i don't know if i've been shot. shots have been fired. i switched to emergency lights and sirens and drove the fastest and best i could to get there. >> as corporal mecham is radioing for help, he also yells for smith to drop his weapon. >> put that gun down or i will kill you! put the gun down! get your hands in the air! now! >> when i heard simmons' sirens a feeling of relief came over me. i knew i had help and quickly it would be over with. >> i got to the scene, corporal mecham was behind his car. i couldn't really see the guy at that point because he was in a ditch in front of his vehicle. >> ron, he's got a gun and we got to get it away from him. he's been hit. >> corporal mecham and officer simmons cautiously approach smith. >> in his hands! got it? >> don't look at the gun! >> don't you move! don't you move!
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>> i'll shot your ass again! don't move! don't move! put your hands behind your back! >> an ambulance arrives within minutes and takes daniel roy smith away. smith, as it turns out, is a career criminal, who had escaped from a halfway house. after this incident, he's convicted of attempted murder and firearm possession and sentenced to 50 years in prison. despite being shot at from point-blank range, corporal mecham escapes the incident without injury. he attributes that in part to a premonition he had the night before. >> basically, the night before i just had this feeling come over me that i needed to practice drawing my weapon and do that repeatedly. and i unloaded my gun, and then i started putting it back in the holster, securing it, and then what we call quick draw.
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and there's no doubt in my mind that that was heaven sent. that -- that i needed to practice more so than ever. >> that practice may have helped save the officer's life. corporal mecham considers it a miracle that he's still alive. >> i would not have survived if it hadn't been for heavenly help. i'm without a doubt sure of that. i'm a very religious person. i was before the incident, and i still am. >> coming up, a police chase takes a terrifying turn when a toddler flies out the window. >> it's very gut wrenching to see that happen to that child, shocking. >> and later a fatal encounter on a bridge. when "caught on camera: dash cam diaries" continues. let that phru for a second. unlimited.
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a high-speed chase ends with a driver tumbling out of a car and police find a surprise inside. la jolla, texas, is a small border town directly across the rio grande river across from mexico and is known as an hotbed for illegal immigration. on august 24, 2009, police are tracking a chevy suburban that's been spotted picking up a group of suspected immigrants. they think the driver is a human smuggler, or coyote. chases involving coyotes can be extremely dangerous. >> the driver was going over 100 miles an hour. the coyotes never want to get caught. it depends how desperate they are trying to get away from police, going up against other vehicles, trying to get out of the way so he can get his getaway. >> swerving in and out of traffic, the suburban leads police on a chase lasting almost 20 miles until suddenly the driver pulls off on a side
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street and does the unthinkable. >> we freaked out. who in their right mind is going to jump out of a moving vehicle? watch again as the driver with the car still moving jumps out of the suv and lands face first on the pavement. two other men jump out and take off, with the car still moving, someone inside puts on the brake. when officers approach with guns drawn, they are startled by what they find. inside, police find a group of illegal immigrants crammed into the back of the suv. many of them terrified by the high-speed pursuit. >> everybody had to exit the vehicle because we had to take a head count. >> one by one the people pile out of the suburban. five passengers, ten, 15, and they're still coming.
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just when it seems everyone is outside, another person hops out of the car. and another, and another. when the last person exits the suburban, one of the officers tilts his dash cam to capture the full spectacle, 22 people in all. what might seem like a shocking number of people crammed into such a small space is actually not that uncommon in south texas. >> it's no big surprise to us anymore. we deal with it on a daily basis. >> because of la jolla's proximity to mexico and because the fence along the texas border is incomplete, illegal immigrants are able to slip undetected into the united states. >> this is the border the united states has built. apparently this is where the fence ends right here. right behind me, this is how close we are to the river. you know? so there is a gap between here, the end of the fence, and maybe about 50 miles west of where we stand at this point.
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>> the immigrants are sent to border patrol for processing. with so much of the border fence still under construction and a shortage of people patrolling the area, chief gutierrez knows incidents like this are bound to happen again, and he thinks there is really only one solution. >> i think we need stiffer punishment for these coyotes, these people transporting immigrants and trying to make a quick buck out of them. i think that can be the only way it will come to a halt. it's a shocking end to a high speed pursuit. an 18-month-old flies out the back window of a suspect's stolen suv and struggles to make her way back to the car. >> it's very gut-wrenching to see that happen to this the child, shocking. >> june 9th, 2012, lubbock, texas, 19-year-old chelsea and
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her friends are headed to a birthday party at a club. as the girls are in the parking lot, an suv approaches. >> all the windows were rolled down and it was some kids. i just figured they were going to ask us if we were leaving so they could get our parking spot. that's when the guy got out of the car and he had a gun. >> chelsea and her friends are too stunned to be terrified. >> that's when he said give me all your [ bleep ]. that's when i looked up and i thought, wait. what's -- what? i said, is this a joke. and he said, no, this is not a joke. he said, i will shoot you, give me your purse. >> chelsea hands over her purse, and as the suv speeds away, she notices something. >> there was a little girl in the backseat. she was just sitting in the very back of the vehicle, just not more than a year and a half old. >> immediately chelsea calls 911. >> 911, what's your emergency? >> hi. we were just mugged.
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>> where are you at right now? >> we're at the back of -- parking lot, the club in the depot district. the car mugged us and then backed up and hit a car and drove away. >> what kind of vehicle were they in? >> it was a silver tahoe. >> sergeant jonathan stewart is an 11-year veteran of the lubbock police department. >> when the victims called dispatch and relayed the description, all officers in the area were then on the lookout for that tahoe. >> half a mile away from the parking lot, officer andrew evans sees a chevy matching the description and gives chase. unaware there's a child in the suv. >> once he initiated his lights and attempted to stop the vehicle, the vehicle fled and a pursuit ensued. >> the pursuit lasts only several blocks before the tahoe makes a tight turn too fast. the suv rolls over once and as it rolls, officer evans sees
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something flying out the back window, a little girl. the tahoe comes dangerously close to landing on her. amazingly, despite the unbelievable rollover, the little girl appears unhurt, and walks towards the suv, unsteady on her feet, she stumbles and then lifts herself up. >> the initial reaction to this is a great deal of shock and surprise to see the child first of all thrown from the vehicle, and then to get up and be walking after the vehicle. >> a young woman comes to grab the girl. at first glance, it appears to be a good samaritan getting her out of harm's way, but it turns out to be her mother, who was riding in the car. >> down on the ground! get down! get down! >> if february of 2013, kenny
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jimenez, the suspect who robbed chelsea and her friends is convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. in another surprising twist, jiminez turns out to be the baby's father. sergeant stewart, the father of a young daughter himself, finds it hard to watch the video. >> it's actually very gut-wrenching to see that happen to the child. >> chelsea agrees. >> everyone was thankful for the little girl. it's incredible video. i'm just glad that she's safe and no one was injured. it's a miracle that nobody was. >> coming up, a drunk driver leads police on a perilous high-speed chase. >> if he got into an accident at those speeds, somebody usually gets terminated. >> when "caught on camera: dash cam diaries" continues. ia can m.
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safety, my shift partner's safety, and the public's safety. he was all over the road. >> halloween, 2010. patrolman victor villa of the new mexico state police hears about a pursuit in progress involving a camaro outside of las vegas, new mexico. a few minutes earlier the car had been pulled over for speeding and suspicion of dui, but the driver sped off before he could be detained. patrolman villa joins the chase. >> be advised. blue camaro just had his flashers on. unknown reason. >> when i got behind the camaro, it was traveling in and out of lanes. it was traveling at a high rate of speed. >> also following the camaro is the sergeant who first pulled over the speeding car. the driver is refusing instructions to stop, and police decide to set up stop sticks in his path, hoping to puncture the car's tires.
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>> when we first deployed the stop sticks, the suspect pulled into the median, and at that time that's when the sergeant pulled his vehicle in front of the suspect's vehicle. >> the chase appears to be at an end, but the driver isn't giving up so easily. >> we attempted to pull out the driver from the vehicle, and he wasn't cooperating with us, so at that point, that's when we determined we had to break the glass of the vehicle. >> using his side arm, sergeant ramero, seen here in the white shirt, tries as hard as he can to shatter the window, but the glass on the brand-new camaro is difficult to break. >> other officers try to break the glass, but they can't. the camaro drives around the barricade and takes off. >> we're still not done.
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>> in no time he's going at speeds in excess of 110 miles an hour, crossing the median, and heading straight into oncoming traffic. >> what i was thinking was that he's intoxicated, and he's driving, so i know that if he got into an accident at those speeds that somebody usually gets terminated. >> patrolman villa races ahead to set up more stop sticks. >> i'm going to head up a little bit. >> but as before, the camaro manages to get around them. >> i want to get this guy under control. and i'm getting a little bit frustrated. >> police deploy stop sticks again and again. and each time the driver somehow is able to avoid them. >> did not get him. >> then sergeant ramero revises his strategy. >> after seeing that the way he
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can with our stop sticks, i set up two stop sticks instead of one. >> the plan works and the camaro's tires are punctured. but the results are not what he expected. >> i was worried he wasn't stopping, but now that he was driving on flat tires and with sparks coming off the rims, i was worried. >> with smoke billowing from its tires, the camaro is still speeding along at 80 miles an hour, but at least, it runs over a final set of stop sticks. unable to continue driving on rims, the driver stops the camaro in the middle of the street. patrolman villa races to the driver's side window with his collapsible baton, confident about his second chance at the suspect. >> get out! >> i knew he wasn't going to get away this time.
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>> get out of the car. >> get out of the car. >> the driver, 23-year-old damian karees is hauled out of the car and arrested. he pleads guilty to driving under the influence and fleeing from police and is sentenced to 18 months probation. >> pursuits like this usually end up in fatality. the only thing that came out of was some property damage to the vehicle, which was attributed to him obviously. coming up, a cop comes face-to-face with a dangerous suspect, and seconds could be the difference between life and death. >> i decided i was going to have to shoot him before i went unconscious. >> when "caught on camera: dash cam diaries" continues.
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haven't talked to their son yet as he undergross what will be a very rigorous reintegration into life after nearly five years of captivity. among the seven people killed in a massachusetts plane crash was lewis katz, co-owner of the philadelphia enquirer, as well as former owner of the new jersey nets and the new jersey devils. now back to "caught on camera." a police officer tracks down a suspect on a bridge. and ends up in the fight of his life. >> and at that point i realized that i was definitely in a bad place. >> davenport, iowa, july 31st, 2009, officer cliff anderson is working traffic enforcement when he hears a report on his radio of an assault at a nearby cafe
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that serves the homeless. >> one of the volunteer servers at the cafe had been assaulted by one of the clients that had come in, and then immediately after they attacked, the suspect left the area. >> soon anderson gets an update that he's two blocks away from where the suspect is spotted. >> at that time as i turned the corner i was able to see the suspect walking up the sidewalk to the centennial bridge. >> officer anderson gets out of his patrol car and approaches the suspect, later identified as tyrone mallory. >> when i approached the suspect in passing to come over the rail to the roadway, that's when i noticed he had bloody knuckles, so that was definitely the person i was supposed to be looking for. he at first refused to come over the rail, was noncompliant. >> do it now! it reached that point that i had kind of mentally drawn in my head that this is where i'm going to deploy the taser. get down on your knees.
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>> officer anderson uses his taser. >> get down on your knees! >> but it misfires. >> and then that's when he turned and charged right at me. my first reaction was basically to get out of the way. >> mallory outweighs officer anderson by more than 100 pounds and wrestles him to the ground out of the camera's view. >> the first thing i realized when i ended up on my back was definitely this was not a very good place to be with this guy on top of me. >> and then as officer anderson lies helpless -- >> he kind of crawled up my body, up to my face, and that's when he bit part of my eyebrow off. >> wedged between the curb and his car and bleeding profusely, officer anderson is struggling to free himself. >> and i was doing the best i could to just remain conscious. the area around me was starting
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to get kind of dark. and that's when i heard another gentleman run up to the area and began throwing punches as well to him. >> out of nowhere a man runs around in front of officer anderson's cruiser and starts fighting mallory. >> get the [ muted ] off him. >> as it turns out it's a plain clothed detective from nearby east moline, illinois. as luck would have it, the detective, jim weekly, is on his way to meet his wife for lunch when he sees the incident unfold. >> i'm slowing up making sure the officer goes wrong. and that's when i see the glistening of the taser wires in the sunlight. >> detective weekly races around the front of the cruiser and is shocked by what he sees. >> get the [ bleep ] off him! the first thing i see is every officer's worst nightmare. i see the officer on his back. i see the suspect punching him very fast and violently to the face. >> without hesitation, he joins in the melee.
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>> my job at that point was to get the suspect to start fighting me, to get him off the officer. >> meanwhile, officer anderson is fighting for his life. >> i was basically only able to see shadows. i decided i was going to have to shoot him before i went unconscious, and that's when i shot mr. mallory. >> i don't so much hear the first shot, i felt the first shot. i felt the concussion of it going through my chest. >> weekly mistakenly believes that he might have been shot. >> at that point, kind after freak-out mode trying to figure out, okay, who just shot who? >> and then i pulled the trigger a second time, and then it seemed like right after that, he was just gone. he just disappeared. >> get down on the ground! get on the ground! >> shot twice in the chest, mallory stumbles in front of the cruiser and collapses. >> i saw officer anderson out of
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the corner of my eye, and i was shocked to see him up and walking towards mallory. >> at that point officer anderson kind of collapsed on top of mallory. >> first thing i noticed was his missing eyebrow, and my concern at that point was with his injuries and making sure he was okay. >> are you okay? >> i don't know. >> back-up units arrive on scene. officer anderson and mallory are transported to the hospital. anderson is treated for a concussion and his eyebrow is stitched up. mallory dies from his gunshot wounds. an internal investigation concludes that mallory's shooting was justified. since the incident, officer anderson and detective weekly have become good friends.
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anderson knows, had weekly not stopped and assisted, he might not have survived. >> detective weekly is definitely a hero. i know without his assistance, the situation would have probably turned out a lot different. he's definitely my hero, and i know that he's probably going to say it was just part of the job. >> i have no idea what would have happened. i was just glad i was there so he wasn't alone. coming up, a cop drives through a storm unaware that he is on a collision course with a tornado. >> when the wind speeds began to approach 90 to 100 miles per hour, the ability for that tornado to roll that car increases dramatically. >> when "caught on camera: dash cam diaries" continues. u get hi. and now you get hit again. this time by joint pain. it's a double whammy. it could psoriatic arthritis a chronic inflammatory disease that attacks your joints on the inside and your skin on the outside.
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driven to preserve the environment, csx moves a ton of freight nearly 450 miles on one gallon of fuel. what a day. can't wait til tomorrow. alright, that should just about do it. excuse me, what are you doing? uh, well we are fine tuning these small cells that improve coverage, capacity and quality of the network. it means you'll be able t post from the breakroom. great! did it hurt? when you fell from heaven (awkward laugh) ...a little.. (laughs) im sorry, i have to go. at&t is building you a better network. police officer driving to his station finds himself in the middle of a heavy storm with a tornado bearing down.
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>> get away from windows. get out of your car. >> it was like something out of a horror movie. i was hoping no one else was headed this way. >> norman, oklahoma is home to university of oklahoma and the beloved sooners football team. but it is also home to some extraordinarily unpredictable and violent weather. >> that storm once it started really spinning west of norman ramped up pretty quickly, and boom, in a matter of a couple minutes it started spinning much, much faster. >> that's trouble with a capital "t" right there. this is big hail here. >> monitoring the storm that day is mike morgan, chief meteorologist for station kfor in oklahoma city. >> you can really see the wall cloud starting to spin much, much faster. at that point we knew there was going to be a reasonable chance that a tornado was going to set down on the western sides of norman, third largest city in oklahoma, and go right through town. hey, mike. i got it. we've got tower flashes right here. it's going to be about two miles just to the west of campus. just to the west of the norman campus.
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>> up in his news chopper pilot john wells can see the storm approaching from the west. >> it's two and a half miles from the university of oklahoma. and you know, you see a lot of people out on the streets. so my thought is these guys need to get covered and out of the way. >> captain david tysher is out in the city when the sudden appearance of a tornado takes us by surprise. >> we did have a little bit of a warning, but not a whole lot. >> when the storm first hits officers are told to return to the station. >> this is normally a rallying place for us in case our communications goes down. >> but the heavy rain makes returning to the station much more difficult. >> we could see the funnel cloud lowering, and we saw the power flashes, and then 30 seconds later the rain just kind of wrapped in around it and it was just like somebody just pulled the curtains and set them down. >> those are the ones that can be especially dangerous. because a lot of folks are in the rain. they're thinking maybe they're not going to be hit by the tornado, and then here it comes in the rain.
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>> sergeant robert scott is one of the officers caught in the storm. in this video captured on his dashboard camera sergeant scott is making his way back to the station as the weather gets progressively worse. >> his thought process was to go to the police department here because he felt like he was getting away from the storm. >> turns out when the tornado actually developed and touched down, a bunch of momentum of wind came around the south side of it. >> circulation might be trying to reform here on the northern side of norman. >> as it did that it pulled the tornado about a mile to this the north. turns out it went right through downtown norman. >> sergeant scott doesn't realize it, but he's driving right toward the eye of the storm. as he's driving you can hear mike morgan giving the weather report on radio station kj-103. >> you got to get out of your car. you got to get in the ditch.
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>> you think you're safe in your car. it's basically sheet metal and steel. it's a frame. but think about it. it's also a glass cage. >> the longer sergeant scott drives through the storm, the more danger he's in. >> when the wind speeds begin to approach 90 to 100 miles per hour, the ability for that tornado to roll that car increases dramatically. >> with nowhere else to go, sergeant scott continues driving. the rain pounding on his cruiser. back at the station, conditions are not much better. >> lights started flashing. it looked like something kind of out of a horror movie. i was hoping no one else was headed this way. >> just a few hundred yards away sergeant scott desperately tries to navigate the streets through the pouring rain, unaware that the tornado is behind him and gaining on him. >> looking at the dash cam video, he's trying to get to the police station, but it's overtaking him. plus he can't go in a straight line. the tornado is basically going
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in a straight line. that's another reason we encourage folks not to be in their cars. you can't go in a straight line forever in a car. tornadoes certainly can, and they don't stop for anything. >> sergeant scott makes it back to the entrance of the station, but it's blocked by debris. >> as he came back to the west again, boom, like a hot knife through butter, that tornado came right across the hood of his car. >> the wind hurls debris at sergeant scott's car at 100 miles an hour. broken fences and downed trees become potentially lethal projectiles. from this security camera mounted outside, you can see the tornado reeking havoc outside the station. if you look closely, you can see sergeant scott's cruiser as it's battered by the wind. with his roof closed by the falling debris, sergeant scott backs up and heads for a different entrance. he finally makes it around to
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the other side of the building, and is able to reach cover. sergeant scott survives the storm that miraculously kills no one. inside he runs into captain tysher and tells him about his wild ride. >> that's when he told me that he drove through the storm. it was hard for me to believe based upon his reaction. i was very impressed after seeing the video what he had went through that he was still as calm as he was. flying objects, the trees falling down. the trees chasing him. the wind was breaking down of the car. it's definitely something that i hope to never see again. coming up, a drunk driver one officer will never forget. >> once in a while you'll come across a situation where somebody pulls a opportunity just like this. when "caught on camera: dashcam diaries" continues. girl, she makes underwater fans
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a police officer pulls over a driver for suspicion of driving under the influence. then he crashes his car, not once, but twice. october 17th, 2010, officer tony white is patrolling laguna beach, california. this seaside town is known for its beautiful beaches and great night life. so officer white is on the lookout for people who may have had a bit too much to drink. >> in laguna beach, it's an affluent community, however it's also known more as a party town. people come to our town to enjoy themselves. they go out to the bars, restaurants and clubs, as a result that does tend to elevate the number of vehicles that may be out on the road with impaired drivers.
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>> sure enough, officer white spots a toyota prius that's swerving out of its lane. >> i happen to notice that he had some trouble negotiating a turn off the side street to the main thoroughfare. with this particular driver i probably followed him about seven blocks in total before i decided this might be an impaired driver worth investigating. >> officer white flips on his lights, and with dash cam rolling the prius pulls over to a gas station. >> as i walk up to the vehicle, i can immediately see that he appears to be fumbling with the license. and i can smell the alcohol that's inside the vehicle, and certainly as he he was looking arnold talking to me, he had signs of impairment with a slurred speech. >> all signs of a typical dui stop. but what happens next is anything but typical. >> i actually asked the driver for that time that he was trying to fumble and prepare for me, and as he was handing me the paper work for the vehicle i asked him to exit the car. the funny thing is the vehicle starts rolling back was the driver attempting to do his best to jump back in and control the vehicle as it continues
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barreling backwards towards my patrol car. >> as officer white looks on, the prius smashes into the front of his patrol car. >> i first thought as the vehicle collides with my car is i've got more paperwork. i've got a traffic accident, in addition to a possible impaired driver, and of course he's helping me build my case towards him being impaired. >> after the man collides with the cruiser, it seems like he has the car under control, but suddenly, the driver hits the accelerator and the car lungs forward into a concrete pillar. what's not clear in the dash cam video that in addition to the impaired driver, there's also a passenger in the car. officer white radios for backup and medical units. >> if i can have another unit, in fact, two more units. >> my first concern now is for injuries. because at that speed they could have sustained some injuries. >> luckily the driver and
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passenger are uninjured in the crash, but there's still one more bit of unfinished business. >> once i confirm there's no injury to either party in the car. my next concern is do i still have an impaired driver? >> officer white asks the driver to get out of the car for a standard dui test. the results of the test lead to the forgone conclusion, an arrest on suspicion of dui. as for the passenger. >> i find out that's actually the driver's wife, and she was shouting at him, certain expletives that i can't explain here at this time. but certainly she was upset that a, he was driving and b, he just crashed into a prius. >> the dash cam video is later used as evidence to help convict the driver of drunk driving. >> just showing the video alone to his defense attorney made the point that he was not going to try to fight the dui. >> a police officer who has seen
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it all has one of the strangest encounters of his career when he pulls over a famous crime fighter. >> not too many people that i stop are dressed up in a costume. and especially not a batman costume. how you doing? >> march 21st, 2012, silver spring, maryland, officer paul borgea. a 29-year veteran of the montgomery police department is patrolling route 29 during the morning rush hour. >> traffic at that time was -- it's still heavy, but it's moving. and i think about three to four cars in front of me i see this vehicle, and it's a black sports car. and it's got its top down, and what struck me about it is that it had no tags. i mean, it had none, no tags at all displayed. >> that however isn't the only unusual thing that the a officer observes.
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>> i could see the batman ears. you know, he that had mask. and it's like, god. does this guy got a batman mask on? >> borgea radios into his dispatcher. >> he's got no tags. but he's dressed like batman. >> and pulls the black lamborghini over. >> you can send robin over if you wish. >> inside the car is none other than the caped crusader. >> i like your outfit, man. >> officer borgea asks the masked man for his tags, which are in the backseat. >> and so he got out and sure enough, when he got out, i mean, you could see that full batman outfit. >> let me tell you something, that costume was an awesome costume. >> batman hands over his plates to officer borgea. >> he was a great sport about it, and then the time we were waiting to get our return, he explained why he was wearing the batman outfit. the gentleman was on his way to children's hospital. and he does this for charity.
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>> in this case, batman's secret identity is lenny b. robinson. lenny is a semiretired businessman who spends most of his time visiting sick children in hospitals dressed as the super hero. >> my youngest son was obsessed with batman. and his obsession became my obsession. then my ocd kicked in. and i had to get the real costume. the car. and what to do with it all, well, it was about going to childrens hospitals and making a difference. >> batman is on his way to the hospital when he's pulled over by officer borgea. >> i did not know immediately why he was going to pull me over, but i figured he was going to pull me over to find out who this person is with a batman costume on driving a lamborghini bat mobile. what's going on? it's not something you see every day. >> lenny notices even the officer can't contain his enjoyment. >> he was humming the bat theme
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as i was getting my license and the registration, i can hear him in the background humming the batman theme. ♪ batman >> the registration checks out, and batman is free to go, but not before other officers show up and ask for photos. >> do you mind if we take a picture with you? >> lenny is more than happy to oblige. >> i believe this police pullover made their day-to-day jobs a little bit easier. >> officer borgea considers this chance meeting with batman a unique experience. >> this traffic stop will probably stick out for the rest of my career, you know. and i'm quite sure i'll probably hear it when i do retire. i'll be known as the batman stopper. >> and as lenny pulls away, officer borgea has a moment to share a laugh with his dispatcher. >> good night. good night, alice.
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or gracie. shocking video, strange stories and surreal moments. the nation watches mesmerized believing a child is trapped inside a homemade flying saucer. >> could you just say once and for all was this a hoax? >> a camera captures a bucket list wish that leaves an 80-year-old woman dangling at 11,000 feet. >> he kept saying holding on. i says, i'm holding. >> and a stolen dump truck plows into police. >> all i could think of was, oh, god, stop this thing. >> heart pounding rescues. >> she said to me, mindy, kendall's horse is going to die. and i wali
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