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Go in there and kill this guy

Body camera video captured a scene rarely made public: a Baltimore SWAT supervisor ordering an officer to kill a man holding two children hostage with a knife. 

Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis showed the graphic footage of the recent standoff at a Baltimore rowhome to reporters Tuesday, the latest of three officer shootings recorded by body cameras since the city rolled them out last year. About 900 officers now wear the cameras daily.

The video captures a SWAT team sergeant outside the house where authorities had been unsuccessfully pleading for nearly an hour Friday for 39-year-old Reno Owens to release the one-year-old boy and four-year-old girl he was holding. The sergeant said the man, also clutching a 12-inch butcher knife, could kill the children at any time, and that non-lethal force wasn't an option.

"I want you to be calm," the sergeant tells SWAT Officer Zachary Wein. "I want you to be relaxed, and I want you to walk in there and kill this guy."

Moments later, video shows Wein walking up the steps, exchanging a few words with Owens, who still refuses to co-operate, and then firing a single fatal shot. During the exchange, Owens can be heard saying, "I'd rather go out this way."

Davis praised the officers for their "courage, bravery and grace under pressure," and stressed such commands from SWAT supervisors are not uncommon in hostage cases involving "a deadly threat." 

Footage was not publicly released to protect the children from being re-traumatized later.



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