Stunning police physique digital camera footage captured the second cops busted right into a Utah man’s home and shot him useless as he was stabbing his dad and mom to demise in a bloody New 12 months’s Day assault.
The cops went to the West Valley Metropolis dwelling at about 5:15 p.m. after somebody referred to as 911 — and though the operator couldn’t hear anybody speaking, they heard screaming within the background, in response to Individuals.
The unwitting officers stumbled right into a scene of unimaginable horror once they discovered 35-year-old Erik Bertelsen gouging dad and mom Terrie, 63, and Kerry, 67, with a knife, a video printed by the Day by day Mail confirmed.
“Show me your f—king hands!” one cop yelled, his pistol pointing on the crazed killer because the officer rushed via the basement door. “Show me your hands! Get your hands up!”
However Bertelsen ignored them and continued to hack away at one of many victims, his blood-soaked arms pistoning up and down as he did his grisly work.
“Drop it! Drop it!” the cops yelled — then one of many officers squeezed off two rounds, sending Bertelson slumping ahead.
The officers continued to yell for the still-moving stabber to drop the blade.
“If you do not drop that knife, you will get shot again!” the panting officer stated between heavy breaths, earlier than warning one other cop to not get too shut as a result of the blade was “hidden in that other hand.”
“Take a deep breath, dude, take a deep breath,” the second officer stated after calling within the capturing. “Breathe, breathe.”
Finally, the cop who pulled the set off lowered his handgun and stepped exterior after the opposite officers requested him to “take a breather.”
West Valley Metropolis Police Chief Colleen Jacobs advised ABC 4 that she noticed a “tragedy” when she watched the footage.
“A very tragic incident that happened with the parties involved, and for the officers involved as well,” the chief stated, including that cops had gone to the house previously.
The Bertelsens’ step-daughter, Chasity Ulibarri, advised KMYU that she “kinda felt like something was going to happen” earlier than the savage killings.
“I sent the cops over here for a welfare check four days ago because I knew he would keep taking their phones, and it wasn’t them that was answering me,” she advised the station.
The officer who shot Bertelsen has since been placed on depart, as per the division protocol.
Retired deputy police chief Chris Bertram advised the station that he thought the officers confirmed strong self-discipline in a tricky scenario.
“I evaluate officer’s actions quite often,” he stated. “I read reports, I see these body cams, and I will tell you this was a difficult day for them. They did an excellent job.”
Bertelsen had a prolonged rap sheet, and had most lately been arrested three days earlier than Christmas for “running outside of his house and on the road in front of his house wearing only his boxers,” in response to a police reserving affidavit reviewed by KSL-TV.
When officers requested him why he was exterior, he advised them he’d used “a lot of meth.”
Bertelsen had been paroled simply 5 days earlier for continuously violating his parole over the span of a decade, the station reported.
The troubled man was additionally arrested in 2009 for strutting round his personal home celebration with a painted face and two large knives, telling company that “someone was going to be stabbed, the devil is here, and he is going to kill,” a police reserving affidavit stated.
He was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault and spent 9 months within the Salt Lake County Jail, plus three years on probation, the station stated.
He was additionally convicted of kidnapping a 12 months later when he wouldn’t let a former girlfriend depart his home after an argument — then threatened to kill her.
A choose despatched him to jail for one more six months, and hit him with one other three years probation, KSL-TV stated.