Editor’s note: The following video contains the depiction of a shooting.
Police body cam video released by the Maine attorney general’s office shows a fatal encounter on June 10 between a Belfast man and a Waldo County Sheriff’s deputy.
The 8-second video from the body cam of Sgt. Nicholas Oettinger, whose hands are visible holding a drawn gun, shows the inside of an apartment building at 63 Cedar St. in Belfast.
An officer who may be Oettinger can be heard yelling for Daniel Ryan, who is not initially visible, to put his hands up. Ryan then enters the room with what appears to be a red gas can that is flaming at the mouth of the jug.
The officer yells, “Get away from that fire! Put it down! Drop it!” Then gunfire is heard, and the officer yells, apparently to other members of law enforcement, “Get out, get out, get out!” and appears to run from the room.
The shooting happened after the man, Ryan, 65, allegedly called police around 1:30 p.m. and told them he was going to burn down his apartment building if officers didn’t respond, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office and the Belfast Police Department.
The man continued to threaten to burn the building down after members of the police department and sheriff’s office arrived, and when they entered his apartment, he allegedly ran at them with the flaming gas canister, as appears to be shown in the video.
That’s when Sgt. Oettinger shot and killed Ryan, police said. Oettinger is now on administrative leave while the attorney general’s office investigates the case, as is standard procedure following police shootings.
