Recently, a police officer in Buffalo, New York, was forced to take drastic measures against a non-compliant suspect who put his life in grave danger.  Officer Ronald Ammerman fatally shot 25-year-old Dae’von Roberts during a routine traffic stop that went sideways when Roberts attempted to speed away with the officer hanging onto the side of the car.

The incident occurred after Ammerman pulled over Roberts just after midnight on Wednesday on Kingston Avenue with a 6-year-old child sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle.  After refusing to comply with the simple requests from the officer, Roberts stepped on the gas, desperately trying to evade the routine traffic stop.

However, bodycam footage shows Ammerman holding onto the open car door as the vehicle reaches dangerous speeds.  Ammerman pleaded with Roberts to stop the car, saying, “You’re gonna kill me, bro,” while the child screamed in terror.  After the vehicle barreled down the road for roughly 20 seconds, Ammerman resorted to drawing his handgun to put a stop to the life-threatening predicament.

Upon firing several shots, both Ammerman and Roberts tumble out of the vehicle onto the road.  “Shots fired! There’s a kid in the car still. He tried killing me,” Ammerman emphatically stated through his radio.  The officer immediately ran to check on the child, who was thankfully uninjured during the dangerous incident.

Roberts was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.  According to police reports, a gun was later recovered in the vehicle as well.  Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia stated that he supported Ammerman’s actions to justifiably use force to defend himself in the incident, citing the “grave risk” that the officer was presented by Roberts’ actions.

During a press conference, Gramaglia said, “I believe that is a justified use of force that occurred the other night.  When you take into account the fact that the officer found himself in a grave risk of serious physical injury or death, the use of that level of force is justified by law and I do believe that that is a justified use of force in this case.”

The police chief further illustrated how such situations as the one Ammerman encountered cannot be taught in classroom or training settings.  Rather, they evolve in real-life situations where quick decision making is required. “These situations, they don’t evolve in a classroom, they don’t evolve in a training facility.” Gramaglia added. “This is real life, there’s not a lot of control the way some of these situations go down. We can train for various situations, but when it happens in real life, when there are actual situations, they always happen differently than what they do in a training facility.”

Watch the incident below:

Reportedly, Roberts had a criminal record before the fatal incident this past week.  Ammerman and the other officer on the scene, Officer Jonathan Crawford, are both on administrative leave in accordance with department policy.  “They’re gonna need time to process this,” the police chief said. “You can’t just come back to work the day after being involved in a situation like that.”

Note:  The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.