See the body camera footage: Monroeville police, suspect engage in intense shootout

By Brendan Kirby

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    MONROEVILLE, Alabama (WALA) — Police her got a call from dispatch on Feb. 24 of last year about a shooting at the intersection of Bigger Street and Bartley Avenue.

It didn’t take long for the situation to escalate, as is evident in police body camera footage obtained by FOX10 News.

Federal prosecutors played those videos last week a Broderick Tramaine Young’s sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose ordered him to prison for 10 years for illegal possession of a firearm. They offer a vivid picture of the danger that four small-town police officers faced that day.

Young previously had been committed to a mental health facility, which makes it illegal for him to have a gun. That 10-year sentence was the maximum allowed by law. Prosecutors sought that punishment because of what Young stands accused of doing with rifle – firing indiscriminately from his mother’s home. One of the bullets went through a neighbor’s house and severely wounded a 15-year-old who was in the bathroom at the time.

Prior to that incident, Young had only a minor criminal record, according to his lawyer in the federal case, Andrew Jones.

“Nothing significant until this,” he told FOX10 News. “This just seemed to occur out of the blue.”

Jones said his client was suffering from delusions on that day.

“He thought he was – that, in fact, what was going on – that people were after him and that he was motivated in a self-defense fashion,” he said.

Police don’t know any of that when they pulled up to the address, however. Officer Ellis Manuel immediately found himself under gunfire. He bailed out of his patrol vehicle and crawled on the pavement to the back of his car.

Officer John Green, meanwhile, engaged the suspect with a rifle from a different vantage point. Incoming fire shattered the driver’s side window. Green crawled on the ground, taking cover behind the vehicle and fired two shots with his sidearm.

Meanwhile, Manuel – gun drawn – slowly made his way toward the suspect, finally taking possession of the AR-style rifle while he was positioned face first on the ground. While Manuel and another officer took Young into custody, Green and others converged on the house of Young’s mother, wary of what might be inside.

“Police Department. Police Department,” one officer yelled.

Yell another; “Open the door. Police Department. Show us your hands. Show us your hands. Come out. Put your hands up. Show us your hands.”

At the end of the encounter, Young was in handcuffs – but still combative.

“Either y’all are going to kill me, man, or go on and take me to jail,” he said. “(Expletive) your dumb (expletive). I ain’t got time for it.”

Officers finally took Young to a patrol vehicle – the same vehicle that sustained a smashed window during the gunbattle.

“He’s resisting,” an officer said while putting the suspect in the back seat. “He’s resisting.”

Debris from the gunfire caused injuries to the neck and eye of one officer, requiring surgery. Shards of glass from the shattered window lodged in Manual’s hand.

Young still faces attempted murder charges in Monroe County related to those two officers and two others who did not suffer injuries but were in the line of fire.

Todd Watson, the district attorney for Monroe County, said he fully intends to prosecute to cases but was waiting for the federal case to be over. He said gunbattles with police in broad daylight are unusual in Monroeville.

“Not the way this one was, anyway,” he said. “It’s rare. It’s not unheard of, but it is rare to be shooting at police officers like that.”

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