The Escondido Police Department has released a video of three officers fatally shooting a driver after a wrong-way freeway pursuit that resulted in a crash last year in the Scripps Ranch area.
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Officers James Albrego, Aaron Palomino and Corey Montross shot Maria Toedt after she led the officers on a high-speed pursuit from Escondido to Interstate 15 near state Route 163 in San Diego on Aug. 29.
The California Attorney General’s Office is investigating the shooting due to Assembly Bill 1506, which requires the state Department of Justice to investigate whenever an unarmed civilian is fatally shot by law enforcement.
The video released Thursday begins with Escondido police Chief Ken Plunkett saying that the pursuit began when officers spotted Toedt — who was wanted on burglary and vehicle evasion warrants — on Bear Valley Parkway near Oak Hill Drive.
The video shows San Diego Police Department helicopter footage of a vehicle driving south on I-15, using the left-hand side emergency access lanes to pass vehicles at a high speed.
The vehicle weaved in and out of traffic, sometimes at speeds exceeding 100 mph, before the driver called 911 and she spoke with an operator, the video shows.
Toedt told the operator that the police are pursuing her, and she wanted to relay to the officers that the situation would end with her “in a body bag.”
“Because I’m not going in alive,” Toedt told the operator in an audio recording of the call presented in the video. “Can you tell the cops to back off? I have a gun, and I will shoot.”
Toedt exited the freeway a handful of times, taking surface streets, before driving back onto the freeway, the video shows.
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While driving on I-15 toward SR-163, her vehicle cut across multiple lanes of traffic into oncoming cars. She then headed in the opposite direction of traffic when a pursuing police vehicle crashed into her and another vehicle.
The video cuts to body-worn camera footage, showing officers exiting their vehicles on the freeway to detain Toedt, who was sitting in the disabled vehicle’s driver’s seat.
“When officers exited their vehicles and approached on foot, Toedt did not comply with their commands and made a series of sudden, furtive movements,” Plunkett said.
At that moment, an officer opened fire at least three times, the video shows. Toedt paused after the initial gunfire and then appeared to leap toward her backseat. Multiple officers then fired into the vehicle, the video shows.
“Based on Toedt’s non-compliant behavior, and her prior statements about being armed with a gun, three officers fired at her,” the chief said.
Officers removed the mortally wounded woman from the vehicle to administer medical aid, the video shows. She died at a hospital.
The Department of Justice declined to provide further details about the shooting Monday, saying that its investigation remained ongoing.
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