Channel 11 obtains body cam footage from fatal officer-involved shooting in Ligonier Township

LIGONIER, Pa. — More than six weeks after a man with a machete was shot and killed by police in Ligonier Township, Channel 11 has obtained body camera footage from the officers involved.

Previous coverage: Son of man killed in officer-involved shooting in Ligonier Township questions officers’ actions

Body camera footage from Officer Ryan Hall is a little more than 21 minutes long. Footage from Officer James Friscarella is about 58 minutes long.

The two officers responded to a home on Gravel Hill Road on July 2 after a 911 call reported a man had a machete and threatened to kill a woman.

The officers spoke with a woman in the driveway who said the man, identified as Robbie Saunders, “almost ripped my hair out.” She said he threw a rock through a back window, had a machete, and “woke up crazy.”

After speaking with the woman, video shows Friscarella walking in front of Hall toward the home. He asks Hall if he wants to have a lethal or non-lethal weapon.

Hall said it didn’t matter to him, and Friscarella chose non-lethal, which was a taser.

Shortly after, Saunders appears to approach the officers from inside the home with a machete. The officers called out to drop the weapon. Saunders continued to approach and both men pull the trigger on their weapons nearly at the same time.

While on the ground, one of the officers tells Saunders, “You have a 14-inch machete, man, you can’t be charging people.”

Officers call for EMS, and Saunders was taken to the hospital where he later died.

Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli said there was clear and present danger in this moment and the use of force was justified. She closed the case at the end of July.

Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek asked WPXI legal analyst Phil DiLucente for his thoughts on this footage.

“There’s an immediate clear and present danger that the officers believed was transpiring and they both reacted in the same way,” DiLucente said. “They both used the force they deemed necessary to stop the man with a sword from coming any further towards them.”

DiLucente said in situations like this, typically officers need to be within 20 feet or so of the threat to use force after a subject doesn’t follow commands.

He said this was much closer. So, the decision needed to be made much quicker.

“The length of the blade, the moving forward of the subject toward the police officers, the instantaneous non-reaction of this person of the commands of both police officers all play a role in discerning that decision,” DiLucente said.

After the shooting, Havranek spoke with Saunders’ biological son Jonathan Faidley. He spent most of his childhood in foster care. He declined an interview Thursday but disagrees with the decision.

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