The fatal shot, Deters said, pierced Kim’s body armor between two ribs of Kim’s vest, then veered and cut an artery.
“It was unsurvivable,” Deters said Wednesday morning during a news conference to reveal details of the investigation of Kim’s killling.
Deters said the difference between surviving and dying was “centimeters.” The other two shots struck Kim in his arms.
The officer who shot and killed Kim’s assailant, TrePierre Hummons “deserves a medal” for saving other officers’ lives and won’t face charges, Deters said.
Hummons was “attempting mass murder. He was going to kill as many cops as he could,” Deters said. But Officer Tom Sandmann, who arrived on the scene after Kim was mortally wounded, shot and killed Hummons as Hummons fired at him.
Deters released the dash cam video from Sandmann’s cruiser, saying it was appropriate to do so once the investigation was over and since it didn’t show Kim’s murder because Sandmann arrived after Hummons shot Kim. However, since the raw video shows Kim lying wounded in the street, Deters chose to release two versions and showed an edited version at a news conference.
The edited video — about 15 seconds — shows Hummons walking down the middle of the street, past Kim, and firing at Sandmann.
It shows Hummons being shot by Sandmann, then abruptly ends. Sandmann is on normal duty, Deters said. Sandmann was not at the news conference.
Kim, a 27-year veteran of Cincinnati’s police force, was lured to the corner of Whetsel Avenue and Roe Street in Madisonville in Cincinnati by a report of a man “walking around, getting belligerent with a gun.” Hummons made that call himself, police said following the shooting.
Deters described how Kim was caught off guard when he drove to the scene and saw Hummons and his mother in the street. Deters said Hummons mother approached Kim and said her son was acting strangely.
“I’ll talk to him,” she said. She didn’t know her son had a gun in his back waistband, Deters said, and she told Kim her son was unarmed.
Kim drew his Taser - not his gun - and got out of the car.
“He goes around his mom and shoots Officer Kim three times,” Deters said.
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