Back-to-back shooting calls make for an unprecedented night for Russellville Police Department

The evening shift on Friday, July 17th wasn’t expected to be a busy one for the Russellville Police Department and the three patrol officers on duty.

After a hot day with temperatures reaching 90 degrees, the evening brought a wave of cool air that made it an unexpectedly pleasant 75 degrees. With football season still a month away, not much was going on in town Friday evening, as many local residents were enjoying their summer vacations with family trips ahead of the coming school year.

With the patrol lieutenant not on duty due to an off day, three officers would handle the evening shift. 

It began as expected, quiet and uneventful. After a quiet first two hours, though, a call came in at approximately 8 p.m., that changed the course of the night and left one young officer having to make a split-second decision in a life-or-death situation that no law enforcement officer wants to face.

A second unrelated call came in around 25 minutes later, where a man had been shot on South Carroll Avenue. Two shootings on back-to-back calls, reinforcing the truth that there’s no such thing as a ‘routine call or shift’ in law enforcement.

Fortunately for the RPD, shooting calls are rare—officer involved shootings even more so. To have back-to-back calls each involving a shooting is something RPD Chief Chris Hargett doubts his department has ever faced.

“I know it’s never happened while I’ve been with the Russellville Police Department,” Hargett said. “When a shooting call happens, we call out extra personnel. When the call went out over the radio that said ‘shots fired,’ it let everybody know there was something seriously wrong and to respond immediately. 

“On Friday night, we ended the evening shift with 11 officers on duty, including 3-4 extra patrol officers, both investigators, Captain Jake Tompkins and myself,” Hargett said.

The first call dispatched officers to Mills Trailer Park, located east of Highway 43 on Linden St., where there was a disturbance at a residence involving a man with a knife.

When the officer (whose name remains withheld pending an independent state investigation) arrived, he saw a Door Dash delivery driver being assaulted by a man with a knife. Having recently graduated with honors from the Montgomery Police Academy, the officer used his training to immediately intervene. According to a statement from the RPD, the officer placed himself between the attacker and the victim, resulting in the knife-wielding man attacking the officer, injuring him with a slash of his knife.

Facing the immediate deadly threat, the officer made a split-second decision to fire his service weapon at his attacker. The suspect, 28-year-old Erik Roman Martinez, was taken to Russellville Hospital where Franklin County Coroner Charles Adcox would pronounce his death a short time later.

The officer, reportedly with knife injuries to his neck and face, was also transported to the hospital, where he was treated and released later that night. The Door Dash driver, Yobani Diego Miguel Bonilla, was working a second job to support his young family. 

Yobani was delivering Wendy’s fast food to the attacker’s residence. When he arrived, Yobani was met by a man who almost immediately became irate, believing his food was not what he ordered, leading to an altercation where Martinez attacked Yobani with a knife. The young delivery driver sustained serious physical injuries to his hands, leg and torso, also requiring hospital treatment.

According to a fund-raising campaign for Yobani and his family on https://www.gofundme.com, Yobani’s injuries will prevent him from returning to work for an indefinite period. The young father of two, including a two month old baby, won’t be able to support his family until he returns to work. The fund-raising campaign has raised $4,870 of $5,500 in only three days.

In the other shooting, officers responded to the 500 block of South Carroll Avenue to find a 62-year-old male shooting victim. He was transported to Russellville Hospital and airlifted shortly thereafter for additional medical treatment at another facility.

Already facing the stress and anxiety of one of their own being involved in a fatal shooting, investigators nonetheless had to work the second investigation. After a search warrant was obtained and executed, additional evidence was gathered and interviews were done with witnesses. 

That led to the arrest of 23-year-old Nyjel Jamar Betts, of Russellville, on an Attempted Murder charge. As of Monday evening, Betts remained in the Franklin County Jail.

The investigation involving the officer-involved shooting, pursuant to department and state policy  and protocol, is being independently done by the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation, the investigative arm of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA).

Until the SBI investigation ends, there will be no comment from anyone associated with the Russellville Police Department. 

In today’s world dominated by social media, public opinions and conclusions come rapidly, often without full knowledge of the underlying news. While Hargett and/or members of his department might want to respond, the time and opportunity for that will come only after the independent investigation is complete.

Hargett and Franklin County Sheriff Shannon Oliver shared with the Franklin Free Press how their officers stay prepared for a potential life-or-death situation while on duty.

“We always talk about it not in terms of ‘if,’ but ‘when’ it’s going to happen and how they must be prepared for it,” Hargett said. “It’s not that it happens all the time, or even often, but it could happen at any moment you’re on duty.”

In a small, rural county, officers are often dispatched to locations they’ve responded to many times before. And even though they’ve never seen anything result from those calls, they must fight the temptation to dismiss them as ‘routine,’ a taboo word in law enforcement. 

“There’s just no such thing as a routine call or a routine traffic stop,” Oliver said. “Once the call is complete, it may have been uneventful, but you can never let your guard down by anticipating what will or won’t happen. That can be a fatal mistake.”

Hargett recalled when he was a patrol deputy, he was called to a domestic disturbance. Domestic disputes can escalate into serious situations quickly. Factors including heightened tensions, mental health issues and sudden aggression dictate that officers must constantly assess threats on a call.

FBI and policing data show domestic violence calls and minor disturbances rank among the most dangerous for responding officers, often leaving them vulnerable to sudden violence.

Hargett recalled when he was a patrol deputy, he was called to a domestic disturbance. 

When he arrived, Hargett found one of the parties simply wanted to leave. The scene was otherwise calm….until it wasn’t.

“I had a reserve officer with me. And all of a sudden, we’re in a fight inside the residence after the guy came at us. There’s furniture flying around and we were bouncing all over the small residence,” Hargett said. 

When an officer maintains his or her professional demeanor on a call, it can sometimes be misconstrued by some as ‘having an attitude,’ as the complaint is often described. 

“Going into a situation, you have no way to know what awaits you behind that door or as you approach a vehicle on a traffic stop,” Oliver said. “You might have responded to an address 20 times before and never had a problem, but that next time might be the first time you do, and remaining vigilant can be a lifesaving decision over prejudging a situation.

“People are often quick to judge but sometimes an officer has to make what could be a life-or-death decision in a window of no more than a few seconds,” he added.

These split-second decisions law enforcement officers are forced to make are generally evaluated on a legal standard of whether the officer’s actions were ‘objectively reasonable’ at the precise moment of the incident, considering the entirety of the situation and circumstance.

The United States Supreme Court, in Garcia v. Connor, held that an officer’s actions cannot be judged with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. Instead, the actions ‘must be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, who is forced to make a split-second decision about the amount of force necessary.’ 

Additionally, deadly force is generally justified only if probable cause exists to be believed that the suspect poses an imminent threat of death or serious physical harm to the officer or another person.

The Alabama SBI investigation of the Russellville officer’s actions the evening of July 17th is a mandatory objective review after all facts and evidence available are gathered. Nothing more should be read into the fact that such an investigation is taking place. It can protect an officer just as it may protect the public in these situations.

With all officers now using body cameras and car cameras, video of the July 17th call should be readily available for review, providing documented video from the moment the officer arrived on the scene. This newer technology can prove invaluable in an investigation.

Once the SBI investigation is complete, a full report will be submitted to the Franklin County District Attorney’s Office, which may, at the DA’s discretion, present the investigation findings to a grand jury for review.

While there’s no substitute for experience, Oliver said the young RPD officer may actually have benefited from his training and what he learned at the academy.

“Being a younger officer, those things are fresher in his mind, so that’s not necessarily a disadvantage,” Oliver said. 

In the short window of 30 minutes or so, in the small community of Russellville, one man’s life ended and three men were injured, all requiring hospital treatment. Their lives dramatically and unexpectedly changed, resulting in physical and psychological scars that may last a lifetime. 

And there’s nothing routine about that.