Wild bodycam footage has been released showing the moment police in Seattle gunned down an alleged sex predator who pulled a gun on them during a sting operation during which the suspect reportedly thought he was meeting up with two underage girls.
The suspect, 67, arrived at a DoubleTree Suites hotel in Tukwila at around 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday under the impression that he was meeting two young girls, ages 7 and 11, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) says.
He knocked on a hotel room door, where he was met by multiple SPD officers with the Washington State Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce who were undercover and waiting to arrest him.
It is unclear what the suspect had been accused of doing or what led police to set up the undercover operation.
Eric Wehrmeister, a man who was staying at the hotel, said he saw the quick-moving situation unfold.
“I was running, I could see someone firing a gun,” Wehrmeister told KOMO. “There was a rapid succession of gunfire. Good thing they were shooting away from my room. You know it could’ve been a lot worse.”
Nicole Parker, a former FBI special agent, tells Fox News Digital that the officers had to react to the fast-moving situation in a split-second.
“Praise to these cops at the Seattle Police Department for their quick reflexes and neutralizing the threat immediately so no one else was harmed,” Parker says. “Sadly, in light of countless recent line-of-duty law enforcement officer deaths, we know it doesn’t always work out this way.”
Parker says that child pedophile offenders are often the most dangerous criminals and can put police in life-threatening situations.
“They know when they are caught – they’re going away for a long time and they have nothing to lose,” Parker says, noting that two of her former FBI special agent colleagues were shot dead while executing a search warrant for a child predator three years ago.
She says the moment police feel their lives are in danger, they are trained to react.
“An officer does not have to wait to be fired at before deadly force is justified,” Parker says.
“Officers apply deadly force until the subject no longer presents a threat and in this instance, it appears that is exactly what they did. This was a lawful use of deadly force.”