THIS is the shocking moment a police officer fatally shot a “suicidal” addict in the head at point-blank range in disturbing bodycam footage.
West Valley City Police Sgt. Tyler Longman told a handcuffed Michael Chad Breinholt, 31, “you’re about to die, my friend” before shooting him dead inside a processing room in August 2019.
Officials with the West Valley PD later found Longman’s use of deadly force to be within department policy.
Nearly two years on from the shooting, however, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill is still weighing whether to file charges against the Sergeant.
Longman had been involved in two other fatal shootings before he came into contact with Breinholt on August 23, 2019. In both of those prior shootings, prosecutors ruled Longman’s actions were legally justified.
The public had only previously seen a short video, edited by the police department, documenting what happened to Breinholt.
However, the Salt Lake Tribune fought for the full video to be released for six months, before finally publishing it in full on Tuesday.
Police first encounter Breinholt shortly after he showed up at his girlfriend’s place of work intoxicated.
As his partner explains to attending officers, Matt Lane and Taylor Atkin, Breinholt informed her that he’d “taken a lot of pills” because he wanted to die.
“It seems like he just wants to commit suicide,” his girlfriend told police, adding that he told her he’d taken eight or nine pills. “He just said that he took all those pills so he’ll die.”
Officers determined that Brienholt had driven to his girlfriend’s place of work. He was subject to a breathalyzer test and blew a blood alcohol level of 0.162 – more than three times the state’s legal limit.
Lane arrested Breinholt and took him into custody.
The officers spent nearly two hours with the 31-year-old inside a processing room in the West Valley City PD headquarters. He was handcuffed throughout.
At times, Breinholt is heard crying and moaning for help insisting his head hurts.
One of the officers is heard saying it “must be a case of felon-itis.”
Officers also threaten to charge him with additional crimes, including giving a false name to police and for destroying police property when he chewed on a breathalyzer cord.
Breinholt is seen crying throughout the threats.
At one point, he flops onto the concrete floor in tears, to which officers tell him “a lot of drunk people have p**sed on that floor, you might want to get up.”
Officers left him on the floor for more than 11 minutes as they waited for medical personnel to arrive to check on him, the Tribune reports.
After he was deemed fine, an officer hoisted Breinholt up from the ground and back into his chair.
Longman wasn’t present for the initial arrest but came to the police station to assist Lane and Atkin, according to the footage.
Breinholt asked officers to take him to the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, known as “UNI,” but the officers refused.
“I’m not going to sit here all night and play games with you,” Longman told Breinholt.
“You’ve already wasted our fire department’s time by having them come out for some bulls**t, OK? I’m not taking you to UNI, I’m taking you to jail.”
Shortly afterwards, Breinholt stands up from the chair and tells Atkin, “I have a gun in my pants.”
The officer responded by laughing, telling him “Good try.”
“We checked him. Does that count as a threat of violence if he reached into his pants and said, ‘I have a gun in my pants?’” Atkin asks the other officers.
Over the next few moments, Breinholt continues to keep standing up and claiming to have a gun stowed in increasingly bizarre places.
He first tells Atkin he has a gun in his shoe, before saying there’s a “gun in my seat.”
As Atkin and another officer lifted Brienholt out of the chair to take his shoe, the trio becomes embroiled in a struggle.
Atkin then calls out: “Oh f**k, he’s got my gun! He’s got my gun!”
The footage appears to show Breinholt, with his hands cuffed behind his back, grab the officer’s gun as they began to wrestle with him.
The gun wasn’t removed from its holster.
Longman then rushed into the room, pulling his firearm as he grabbed the side of Breinholt’s head.
He then chilling told him, “you’re about to die, my friend,” before shooting him once just below his right ear.
You’re about to die, my friend.
Sgt Longman
Family members of Breinholt have called the footage of his final moments heart-breaking.
Breinholt’s mother, Susan Neese, told the Tribune of Longman: “He took the time to think about that, to say those words. And then aim and shoot, and kill Chad.”
His brother, Chase Breinholt added to the outlet: “Chad would still be here had something happened to that officer.
“If he could have been put on some other duty or let go or if there was something put in place after taking the first person’s life. Definitely after [taking] a second person’s life. Why is he still carrying a gun?”
Long was involved in two prior fatal shootings before his encounter with Breinholt.
In August 2007, shot a man who had been sleeping in his car outside a 7-Eleven. A police report claims Longman saw the man holding a gun before he and another officer opened fire.
The following year he shot dead a man during a domestic violence call who was holding a knife to his wife’s neck.
Officers attempted to reason with the man, reports say, however, he began counting down from 10 and Longman fire two rounds.
In both shootings. Breinholt was deemed to have been justified in his use of deadly force.
The Breinholt family’s attorney says they intend to sue the police department and Longman over the 31-year-old’s death but are awaiting a verdict from the District Attorney on whether charges will be filed.
The attorney, Colin King, told the Tribune that the shooting of Breinholt was “unrighteous, unjustified and excessive use of force.”
“Chad Breinholt was completely restrained and controlled the moment he was shot in the side of the forehead point-blank by Officer Longman,” King said.
“That use of force was utterly and completely unjustified. He was a young man who was handcuffed behind his back, who had [several officers] in the room controlling him. If this isn’t excessive force, I don’t know what is.”
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill has not yet returned a US Sun request for comment.
