This one is a lesson in how long good officers will work a problem before they solve it the hard way.
What happened
August 7, around 6:25 p.m., the Hamilton Road exit on Interstate 70 in Columbus, Ohio.
A 911 caller reported that after a crash, 32-year-old Brandon Burtyk got out of his vehicle, produced two handguns, fired shots, and fled on foot still holding them.
Columbus Division of Police officers found him outside a home on the 4500 block of Errington Road. He had a handgun pressed to each temple and he was yelling at officers to kill him.
What follows on the bodycam is several minutes of an officer working. “Put the guns down, let us talk about this.” “What is your name?” “It is not worth dying for.” Steady, calm, no yelling, no escalation. He was doing the job right.
At one point another officer asks Burtyk to do just one thing: keep the muzzles pointed in a safe direction. That is not a small request. A round fired into the air over a residential neighborhood comes down somewhere.
Then Burtyk brought the guns off his head and extended both arms outward, toward officers.
Multiple Columbus officers fired. Burtyk was not struck by gunfire. He tossed a gun, officers moved in, and he was taken into custody and transported to a hospital to be evaluated for injuries from the earlier crash.
He fired at officers and one of his rounds grazed an officer in the leg. That officer was treated at Grant Medical Center and released.
One of the handguns was reported stolen. Burtyk was charged with one count of felonious assault and held on a $3 million bond.
It does not matter that he wanted to die
This is the part people argue about in the comments every single time, so let us be clear about it.
The moment a firearm comes off a man’s own head and points outward, his intent stops being the relevant question. He is now a lethal threat to everyone standing in front of him, and the officers looking at him have a fraction of a second to decide.
Nobody gets paid to test the waters and find out whether suicidal is where it stops. A meaningful number of these calls involve a person who kills somebody else and then themselves. Officers do not get to gamble their lives, or a neighbor’s life, on the hope that this one is different.
He had already fired shots at the crash scene before any of this. That is not a man who has only turned the weapon on himself.
What the officers earned
They earned a lot of credit here, and it should be said plainly.
He was close to being shot from the first moment they saw him, and they did not do it. They talked. They asked his name. They tried to give him a reason. They asked him for the smallest possible concession — just point it somewhere safe — because they were still trying to find a version of this where he lives.
He took that option away himself, with his hands, on camera.
Watch his hands
Slow the end down and it is unmistakable. Both guns pinned to his temples. Then both arms come down and out, extended, toward the officers.
That is the trigger. Not the yelling. Not the refusing. Not the crisis. The arms coming out.
None of the officers’ rounds hit Burtyk. He fired at them, and one of his rounds grazed an officer in the leg. Police say another of his rounds struck a house on the street. That happens. Under that kind of stress at that kind of distance, misses are common, and it does not make the decision wrong.
