[narrator] In Wisconsin, a canine saves lives.
[Deputy Terry Tifft]
[Sgt. Colin Coultrip]
[gunshot]
But pays a price.
[Deputy Tifft]
I didn't know how bad his injuries were.
[screaming]
[narrator] In Connecticut...
All of sudden, I just see someone flagging me over.
[narrator] A routine patrol...
[man]
...turns deadly.
[gunshots]
I'm in the most danger I've ever been in my life.
[Ptl. Andrew Pfeiffer]
[siren wailing]
[narrator] And in Oklahoma, a head on collision...
[Deputy Smith shouts]
[crashes]
...leads to a full scale manhunt.
[Deputy Smith]
He could have just murdered somebody.
[indistinct police radio]
[officer shouting] Sherriff's office. Come outside!
[narrator] On Wisconsin's southern border in Kenosha County
is the village of Bristol.
[dramatic music playing]
[Deputy Tifft] Bristol is a small town, but it's growing fast
and it's in between two big cities,
Chicago and Milwaukee.
So we get a lot of people that are passing through.
We're only about 40, 45 min from Chicago.
There are positives.
But there's a lot of negatives also that come into play,
where people in crime spill up and over into Wisconsin.
[police radio]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
[siren wailing]
We received this call from the Chicago police.
They had a stolen vehicle
that was taken in a double homicide
in the city earlier this morning.
[distant siren wailing]
The incident in Chicago involved an individual
who shot two citizens.
The first one involved an argument
where the suspect drew his gun
and shot him in the head right then and there.
The second victim gave up his vehicle,
but the individual then shot him, who knows why.
And stole his vehicle to come up into Wisconsin.
A GPS tracker on the vehicle has it pinpointed to here.
The information we got, just that it was parked at Benson Corners gas station
and it was a brown colored Buick SUV.
Knowing the gravity of what he just did,
we're going to be extremely cautious.
If he's in the vehicle, we're going to treat it as a felony traffic stop
where we have multiple squads approach him all at once.
[tense music playing]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
I roll up and see the individual actually in the car.
And I parked on the other side of the parking lot.
Once I parked, he was immediately on his brakes,
which I interpreted as him trying to do
the push start activation on his vehicle.
But neither of us moved.
As I'm watching, he's digging down into the floorboards,
digging into the backseat.
That's not normal behavior.
People doing that are either hiding contraband,
hiding drugs, hiding guns or retrieving guns.
I'm running through, "What if he does this? What if he does that?
How am I going to counter? How am I going to react?"
I'm prepping my patrol rifle for anything and everything
that could potentially happen.
[rifle cocks]
[siren wailing]
[narrator] While Sergeant Coultrip keeps watch,
Deputy Tifft races to the scene with his K9 Riggs.
K9 Riggs was eight years old,
and I had him for about six and a half years at that time,
and I've always considered him family to me.
I've spent more time with K9 Riggs [chuckles]
than I have with my wife and kids.
I had my red and blue lights activated, siren activated for as long as I can.
I had to shut that off once I was getting close
because I did not want to tip the suspect off that I was coming.
[Sgt. Coultrip] My other colleagues arrived.
We need to make this happen now before he tries to run.
We had four deputies.
The plan was we would all approach in our vehicles
and conduct a high risk traffic stop.
We're taking him as the worst case criminal.
He's going to try to kill us.
He's going to try to kill somebody else.
[Sgt. Coultrip]
[sheriff]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
Our roads are busy. The gas station is busy.
There's no time to be wasted.
[tense music playing]
[siren warbles]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
[sirens wailing]
The driver steps out of the vehicle.
I'm thinking, okay, maybe this is actually going to go according to plan.
He was looking around 360 degrees.
[Sgt. Coultrip]
I am able to see him pull a pistol out from his pocket
and he took off running towards the highway.
[Riggs barking]
[Sgt. Coultrip shouting]
-[Deputy Tifft] -[gunshot]
-[police radio] Shots fired. -[Deputy Tifft]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
[gunshots]
As soon as the suspect ran from his car,
I immediately gave chase.
As I was running, I had to let K9 Riggs through
so he would be able to catch up to the suspect.
The suspect reached under his arm
and fired one round back at us.
[gunshot]
I deployed K9 Riggs.
[Sgt. Coultrip]
[Deputy Tifft] When he bit the suspect on the left arm,
he tumbled them.
And I think that saved the lives of the deputies
that were running after the suspect
because he couldn't get a clean shot off.
And I just remember seeing him holding Riggs
and just raising the firearm up
and just shooting K9 Riggs in the forehead
right between his eyes.
Our dogs are trained to bite and hold.
K9 Riggs has never come off a bite
that I have not told him to come off.
He came off and moved out of the way and laid in the grass
just to the south of the suspect.
So I knew he had been shot.
[Sgt. Coultrip] Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
[Deputy Tifft]
The suspect rolls over and points his gun
clear as day towards us,
and that's when I return fire and stopped him.
[indistinct police radio]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
I'm holding cover until I get more deputies
coming on scene to confirm his hands are empty.
[Deputy Tifft] My focus was still on the suspect.
It was extremely difficult
not being able to tend to K9 Riggs,
but I had to make sure that our community is safe.
[deputy 1]
-[officer 1] Stay back. -[officer 2] Don't shoot.
[deputy 1]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
Get away from him!
[deputy 1]
[deputy 2]
[Sgt. Coultrip]
We place him into handcuffs
and in handcuffs, we roll him over
and immediately jump right into life saving mode.
[Sgt. Coultrip]
[police radio]
[deputy 1] No, stay down.
[Sgt. Coultrip]
[narrator] Now that the suspect is being treated,
Deputy Tifft can turn his attention to his K9 Riggs.
I could tell he was in a lot of pain.
I put him in the back of the car.
[Deputy Tifft]
I heard Deputy Tifft over the radio saying,
in a very frantic and emotional way
that his best friend, his partner, was shot in the head.
I told the deputies on scene I had to get to a vet immediately.
[police radio]
[bleep]
[Deputy Tifft screaming]
[dramatic music playing]
[siren wailing]
[Deputy Tifft]
He wasn't making a lot of noise
and he really wasn't reacting.
You know, when I was calling his name
and trying to talk to him, just trying to keep him calm.
[police radio] You're going to be heading to the hospital.
[Deputy Tifft]
It was very hard to focus.
I had so many thoughts racing through my mind.
[indistinct police radio]
[Deputy Tifft]
I didn't know how bad his injuries were.
You try to prepare yourself mentally,
but you can never fully prepare for an incident like this.
[distant dogs barking]
[narrator] Vets quickly assess K9 Riggs.
They said, "Well, the good news is he was only shot the one time
even though the suspect shot at him multiple times."
The bullet entered his forehead, traveled around his skull,
and then exited below his right ear.
He was in the Level One trauma center for three days,
and I don't think I slept at all those three days.
Finally, they told me that the swelling was coming down.
And that I can come get him and bring him home.
I think just the way his head was tilted
kind of like helped the bullet go around the skull
and didn't enter his head.
Then it would have been a completely different outcome.
He was extremely lucky.
-[woman] Yes! -[cheers]
[whistling]
[Deputy Tifft] The whole street and sidewalks were lined
with K9 officers and people from the community.
Four weeks later, he made a full recovery and was back to work.
Riggs received the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department Purple Heart for the injury
and the County Sheriff's Department Silver Star,
a medal for putting yourself in harm's way.
[Sgt. Coultrip] My initial plan was to tackle Allan Brown.
It would have been a face to face shoot off.
Riggs saved my life, the partners that day
and the community members without a doubt.
[somber music playing]
For his crimes in Kenosha County,
Allan Brown was found guilty
and sentenced to 59 years in prison.
We were able to stop a wanted fugitive
who allegedly killed two people out of the city of Chicago
and hold him accountable for his actions.
[narrator] The double murder in Chicago is still under investigation.
[upbeat music playing]
[Deputy Tifft] Riggs is set to retire sometime this year,
and I'm actually not going to work another police dog
because my expectations of that dog would be so high
that I don't think he could ever live up to what K9 Riggs has done.
[narrator] In Connecticut, just north of New Haven is the town of Hamden.
[dramatic music playing]
I had a very quiet night.
If you go your whole shift
without a single call for service,
they call it a no hitter, just like in baseball.
But all of a sudden, I just see someone
jumping up and down, flagging me over.
He immediately told me there was a guy in the store with a mask.
[man]
[tense music playing]
There was no other thought beyond I know somebody's inside.
I know somebody's in trouble.
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
[police radio]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer] I need to find him before he finds me.
As I moved across that doorway,
I could see the back of the store clerk
who had his hands up in the air through the window.
At that moment, it became very real.
[police radio]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer shouting]
[gunshot]
[gunshots]
[tape rewinding]
[suspenseful music playing]
Suddenly he pops up right in front of me.
And I'm standing in the middle of a doorway,
which is exactly where they tell you never to stand.
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
[gunshot]
I still remember seeing it
and hearing the shot hit the wall
like right next to my head.
[gunshots]
I'm in the most danger I've ever been in my life.
[gunfire continues]
[police radio]
I knew he was trying to kill me.
[tense music playing]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
[police radio]
[gunshots]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer] I really had nowhere to go.
And as I'm looking left...
I see an emergency door burst open
and there's the guy again.
[gunshots]
[siren wailing]
[police radio]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
Officer Pfeiffer is so calm over the radio
that he made it sound like
he was just on another routine call.
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
Signal 100 means send everything you have.
You are in extreme danger.
And you need as much help as you can get.
In 12 years, I've never heard a Signal 100 put over the radio.
My heart immediately sank in terms of how real
the situation possibly could be.
[Ptl. Pfeiffer] I don't know where the suspect is.
I don't know what happened. Like, did I shoot him?
Every instinct you have is to chase the rabbit and-- And get them.
But my priority was to make sure that people were okay inside.
[shouts]
I don't get any response.
Then immediately you're thinking the worst.
It was a very uneasy feeling.
[Sgt. William May]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
[Sgt. May]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
[Sgt. May]
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
[shouting]
[narrator] Officer Pfeiffer finds two victims hiding inside the building.
They are shaken but unharmed.
It was a relief for sure,
but at the same time you got a guy out there with a gun.
He was still a threat.
We got to find this guy.
[siren wailing]
[narrator] K9 handler Sergeant Venditto arrives to track the suspect down.
[Lt. Jason Venditto] You hear shots fired come over the radio.
It's probably your worst fear.
The hair stands up on the back of your neck.
You know it's-- This is something very serious.
[Ptl. Pfeiffer]
[Sgt. May]
We were trying to come up with a quick game plan.
We want to establish a scene perimeter,
which means we are able to pin the suspect down.
[dramatic music playing]
And I've done hundreds of tracks in my career
for dangerous suspects.
But this was a little different.
This individual just shot at a police officer.
Who's to say he wouldn't do it again.
[Sgt. May] This was one of the first times that, looking back, I was scared.
[Sgt. May]
[Lt. Venditto]
[Sgt. May]
As you go through each yard, there's so many unknowns.
The suspect, no matter how quiet we were,
would always know that we're coming.
[fence rattling]
He had plenty of places to hide,
and we had to check every spot.
And it gave the suspect an opportunity to ambush us at any moment.
[Lt. Venditto] It was probably the most difficult
and stressful track I've ever did
in my 21 years as a canine handler.
Every ten feet, we have to stop the track, clear an area.
Dogs get confused when you keep stopping 'em.
They wanna track and find the bad guy.
[exclaims]
[beeping]
[Sgt. May] The perimeter police officers are the eyes and ears,
if the suspect were to try to flee the area.
[officer 1 over radio]
[Sgt. May] An officer observed somebody fleeing across the street.
I knew we were getting close.
Our guard was up even more at that moment.
[Lt. Venditto speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
[Lt. Venditto speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[indistinct yelling]
-[Lt. Venditto speaking] -[officer 3 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[Lt. Venditto speaking]
-[officer 2 speaking] -[indistinct yelling]
We were trying our best
to illuminate the area with our flashlights.
But under the cover of darkness,
the suspect was able to elude us.
And it becomes frustrating that we know we're very close.
That's when I started seeing the change in my dog's behavior.
His ears started going up.
He started air sensing, which is a clear indication
that he was close to who he was looking for.
I remember saying to the units,
"I think we should check the other side of this fence."
[officer 1 speaking]
[indistinct yelling]
[Lt. Venditto speaking]
-[officer yells indistinctly] -[Lt. Venditto speaking]
The suspect was laying under a car on his stomach.
-[officer] Show me your hands. -[Lt. Venditto speaking]
[indistinct clamoring]
[Sgt. May speaking]
[puppy barking]
[Sgt. May speaking]
[police dispatch over radio]
[Sgt. May] It was a tremendous relief at that time
to realize that we had safely located the suspect.
And he matched the exact description that was provided
so eloquently by Officer Pfeiffer.
[officer 1 speaking]
I immediately observed that he had a fresh wound.
[Ptl. Pfeiffer] I had no idea I had ever shot him.
He was shot in his torso, also in his leg,
and he had been shot in the hand.
My round actually disabled his gun.
Just knowing that this thing finally had an end,
and nobody else was hurt.
That was... That was huge for me.
[narrator] The suspect is Kawan Cole.
He pleads guilty to first degree robbery
and criminal attempt to commit assault in the first degree,
as well as criminal possession of a firearm.
-[gunshots] -[officer] He is sentenced to 20 years in prison.
[gunshot]
[narrator] Investigators determine
Cole fired six shots at Officer Pfeiffer.
[gunshot]
[narrator] The officer's conduct is ruled justified,
and he is awarded a commendation.
It was a great sense of relief
that we were able to place the suspect in custody,
not only just for the, uh, threat to the community,
but also for Officer Pfeifer,
who displayed great heroism that day.
[Lt. Venditto] It's a dangerous job, being a police officer.
You know something bad could happen,
but you don't really think about it.
You just go and you do what you do.
Knowing how close some of his rounds came to me,
I know I didn't win that gunfight that day.
I merely survived it.
[narrator] In the heart of Oklahoma,
is Pottawatomie County,
and the town of Wanette.
[Deputy Smith] I had been working
for the Pottawattomie County Sheriff's Office
for about a year.
I was still pretty new to the job.
I was traveling west,
to get to a, kind of, less traveled area of our county,
to patrol that area.
As I'm going, there's a T intersection
that goes down to the town of Wanette.
As I'm passing this intersection,
this car halfway runs the stop sign,
stops in the middle of the road,
and almost hits me.
[police siren blaring]
I realize that, "Hey, this person's trying to get away from me."
[narrator] Deputy Smith chases the car off the highway,
onto a dirt road.
I have never been in a car chase before.
He starts kicking up a lot of dust.
I couldn't see much more than a couple of feet in front of my truck.
-[siren blaring] -[Deputy Smith over radio]
The dirt road is very narrow,
and I know that he's seen me, and he knows I'm behind him.
I'm slowing down, and I pop my seatbelt off,
to get ready to get out and chase him.
Stop!
This road ends in a dead end.
I'm full anticipating that he's gonna continue on
until he hits the wood line, and then run.
But as I'm approaching the blind turn,
I see his car coming around.
It's like time slowed down.
And then as soon as we hit,
it's like time snapped back forward.
Argh! [bleep]
And I was back in the moment again.
Going through my head is "Wow, I just got hit by a car,
"but I'm still chasing somebody.
"I need to get up."
I don't know why this person's trying to get away so bad...
...to the point that he's ended up hitting a cop.
He could just be drunk,
trying to get away from going to jail for that.
Or he could have just murdered somebody.
[narrator] Dispatch alerts Lt. Strand.
[Deputy Smith panting]
[Lt. Strand] My number one concern was, "Is Deputy Smith okay?"
Then the next concern was trying to get our suspect in custody.
[Deputy Smith] As I take off after him,
it's really just an automatic process.
It was kind of like I was on autopilot.
It took me a second to process, as I checked myself,
making sure I don't have any glass or anything sticking out of me.
He's running down an easement
that has a creek that runs through the bottom of it.
That creek runs into a major river that we have in the area.
I know he went one of two ways,
but I didn't know which way, for sure.
[Lt. Strand] Uh, if you're by yourself,
if someone runs to a wooded area,
you don't run after them.
That suspect has the advantage to stop and hide.
And if you're still trying to chase after him
and run past him, and don't see him,
it's an officer safety issue.
[Deputy Smith speaking]
[Lt. Strand over radio]
[Deputy Smith speaking]
[exclaims in frustration]
I'm feeling really frustrated
because, at the moment, he's gotten away.
[Lt. Strand speaking]
[Deputy Smith speaking]
I head back to my truck.
Some officers from a neighboring town had arrived,
and they come up and they start to check me out.
-[officer 1 speaking] -[Deputy Smith speaking]
I start to search the vehicle
of, uh, the person I was chasing.
Inside, I find an ID,
and the picture of the person there
was, uh, a white male that had a little bit of facial hair,
which, in the quick moment I saw the suspect,
it looked similar to him.
On that ID is the name Johnnie Byrd.
[narrator] Officers set up a two-mile perimeter aiming to trap the suspect.
[Deputy Smith] We're coordinating with a lot of different agencies
who ended up coming out and volunteering their help.
[Deputy Neidel] When I arrive to the area, I'm right off of a highway,
that's... The highway actually turns into a bridge,
where there's a river underneath us.
[officer speaking over radio]
[Deputy Smith speaking]
[Lt. Brand] One person can watch that entire area.
You know, let's... Let's lock this down.
[narrator] As the canine team begins searching the woods...
[officer speaking]
[narrator] ...an urgent update comes in.
[officer speaking]
[police dispatch over radio]
[Deputy Smith] That homeowner said that somebody had come up to his house
who was kind of cut up from running through the brush,
and asked for a ride back to the town of Wanette.
[officer speaking]
[police dispatch over radio]
We're thinking this is the person.
He just ran out of the woods,
that we were just chasing him in.
[officer over radio]
[officer speaking]
[narrator] The manhunt in the woods is called off.
Dispatch then receives another call.
[Lt. Strand] 911 received a phone call
of an individual wanting to report their vehicle stolen,
and the vehicle that they're wanting to report stolen
was the vehicle that hit Deputy Smith head on.
I had looked at the call details.
The female that was calling was Mr. Byrd's wife.
What... What's going on?
[narrator] Dispatch sends patrol units
to the suspect's drop off location.
We find the house and we set up a perimeter.
Was he gonna try to run again?
[Deputy Smith speaking]
[Deputy Smith] One of the deputies who is at the rear of the house
saw people in the backyard.
[deputy speaking]
[officer speaking]
You can smell the charcoal burning from the barbecue,
and you can hear people talking in the backyard.
[deputy speaking]
[woman speaking]
[deputy speaking]
-[woman speaking] -[deputy speaking]
[woman speaking]
[deputy speaking]
[woman speaking]
[deputy speaking]
[woman speaking]
[narrator] Byrd's wife, Cassie, is the 911 caller
who reported their car stolen.
And she's not alone.
[Deputy Neidel speaking]
-[man speaking] -[Deputy Neidel speaking]
-[Johnnie speaking] -[Deputy Neidel speaking]
[Johnnie speaking]
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
The residence that we found him at was, like, his in-laws.
[Deputy Neidel speaking]
-[Johnnie speaking] -[Deputy Neidel speaking]
[Johnnie speaking]
-[Deputy Neidel speaking] -[Johnnie speaking]
-[officer speaking] -[Johnnie speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Johnnie speaking]
-[officer speaking] -[Johnnie speaking]
[Deputy Smith] The person I was chasing,
he was wearing a red cut off shirt and then basketball shorts.
And then, as I looked at Johnnie,
I saw that he was wearing long pants and a T-shirt.
So, as I'm looking at Johnnie,
I can't 100% say this was the person in the vehicle.
I had only seen his face for maybe one or two seconds.
What I do notice about him is he had been recently shaven,
and had a a very noticeable tan line
from where his facial hair was.
I knew the person I was chasing did have a beard.
[Deputy Neidel speaking]
[Johnnie speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Johnnie speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Lt. Strand] He's denying everything that...
He wasn't in the vehicle. He had no involvement in it.
[narrator] Police interview family members
who Byrd claims he spent the entire day with.
[officer speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Lt. Strand] It's one of their loved ones.
A lot of people have a lot of loyalty to family.
It definitely gets frustrating.
[Johnnie speaking]
[narrator] Johnnie Byrd sticks to his story.
But Deputy Smith is starting to make connections.
[Deputy Smith] So, as I'm looking at Johnnie Byrd,
I also see that he has tattoos in the same spot,
as the person I've been chasing after the collision.
-[officer speaking] -[Johnnie speaking]
Also, I noticed on his legs, they were all cut up,
as if somebody is running through brush.
His legs looked just like ours, cut up from all the briars.
[Johnnie speaking]
[Deputy Neidel] What sticks with me is
just old-fashioned not everything is what it seems.
He's lying.
[Deputy Smith speaking]
I noticed that he kept glancing over at me, continually,
as he's getting questioned,
which made me believe that
he's nervous that I'm going to completely recognize him,
and he's gonna go to jail.
[Deputy Smith] We're looking back at
all the things he's done to try to deceive us,
from changing his clothes to even shaving his beard.
His legs are cut up. The tattoos.
It's making me become more and more confident
that this is the guy I'm chasing.
[narrator] But without ironclad ID,
officers can't arrest Byrd.
[officer speaking]
-[Johnnie speaking] -[officer speaking]
[narrator] But there is one person
who can help solve this mystery.
The homeowner who reported
driving the suspect into Wanette,
[Lt. Strand] We sent someone to the house of the witness
just to verify all the information.
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
-[officer speaking] -[man speaking]
[Lt. Brand] The witness had told us that
the suspect had asked to use his phone to make a phone call,
and then he deleted the number from the recent call history.
And so, while we were on scene at the house
with his wife's phone, we were able to identify
our person that gave him ride's phone number on her call history.
We're 100% there.
He's going to jail.
[Johnnie speaking]
He still denied that it was him that was involved.
[Johnnie speaking]
[narrator] Johnnie Levi Byrd
is charged with multiple offenses,
including driving without a valid driver's license,
and endangering others while attempting to elude a police officer.
The case remains unadjudicated.
[Deputy Smith] Argh! [bleep]
[Lt. Strand] We've never had a deputy hit head on like that
since I've been here, and I've been here for about ten years.
-[police siren blaring] -[Deputy Smith speaking]
Looking at the lengths he was willing to go to to get away
was crazy to think about.
Show me your hands! Stop running!
[Lt. Strand] We still are not 100% sure as to why he ran,
besides the fact that he had a suspended license.
[Deputy Smith] You get that sigh of relief
because you've got the bad guy.
Which... Obviously, people become cops to help the public.
But there's always that little element
of getting to do the cool stuff you get to see on TV.
♪♪
Narrator: In Texas...
...and I'm looking... she did get shot.
Narrator: And in Washington State...
Man: If he carries on this way he's going to kill somebody.
♪♪