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OREM — Newly-released dashcam video details a tense encounter between Orem officers and an armed man who they say rammed one of their police cruisers.
The video, circulated Monday by the Orem Police Department, shows officers responding on Jan. 6 to a mobile home park at 441 S. State Street, where they believed they had located a stolen car that was part of a pursuit days earlier.
"It's obvious from the video that this guy had all intentions of running," Lt. Craig Martinez said. "He was trying to back up, go forward, and then ram Sgt. [Scott] Spieth's car."
Moments later, the dashcam video shows Officer Alex Winder approaching from the driver's side of the vehicle.
Armed suspect being tazed and taken into custody @OremDPSpic.twitter.com/dDO8KsGDfh
— Orem Police Dept. (@OremDPS) January 11, 2016"He's yelling at him to get his hands [up] and he's telling them, 'No,'" Martinez said.
Spieth is then seen approaching the passenger side of the vehicle, opening the door, and then deploying his Tazer at the driver.
Martinez said a prong came loose, and the Tazer lost its effect on the man, later identified as 35-year-old Shawn Canfield.
"That's when Sgt. Spieth saw the guy had a handgun in his right hand," Martinez said. "There was a handgun, and who knows what this guy was trying to do with it."
There was a handgun, and who knows what this guy was trying to do with it.
–Lt. Craig Martinez
Winder is seen approaching from the driver's side and deploying his Tazer.
Martinez said Canfield was taken into custody shortly after that.
"If I could pick a situation and have it go as perfectly as it could have, this would probably be it – a bad situation that ended up not quite so bad because of the officers' actions," Martinez said.
Prosecutors charged Canfield Monday with nearly a dozen felony and misdemeanor counts, including theft by receiving stolen property, possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, assault against a police officer, failure to respond to officers' signal to stop, criminal mischief, possession or use of a controlled substance, use or possession of drug paraphernalia, and interference with an arresting officer.
Investigators said Canfield was not believed to be the driver in the earlier pursuit, and that person was still at large.
Martinez said if officers had known Canfield was armed, they likely would have approached the situation differently.
"That's not necessarily how we are trained to do it – not saying it's right or wrong, I'm saying in this situation, it was 100 percent right," Martinez said. "It ended up great for everybody involved, meaning nobody got hurt and the suspect's in jail."
