A Janesville police press conference sheds some light on the officer-involved shooting Thursday afternoon.
Officers were dispatched to a traffic accident at 2:45 p.m. when a truck towing a camper trailer went down a southbound I-39/90 embankment and crashed along Highway 14.
Police Chief David Moore said Friday he could only provide limited information while the incident is under investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation.
Moore said the driver was a 27-year-old male from out of state who armed himself with a knife following the crash. Officers attempted less lethal forms of coercion before a 26-year-old officer fired at and hit the suspect.
The chief did not identify either man, and he couldn’t say where the suspect was hit or how many times he was struck.
He also wasn’t able to clarify what led up to the shooting, including what the man was doing with the knife, but he said roughly five minutes elapsed between officers reporting on scene and the suspect being taken into custody.
Dispatchers on the police scanner reported the suspect holding the knife to his own neck, and the first officer on scene confirmed that report back to the dispatcher on the scanner. Chief Moore did not confirm these details.
He said this was the first officer-involved shooting with Janesville police since 2004.
Highway 14 was closed for over eight hours Thursday night while police investigated the area and cleared the crash site.
You can watch Chief Moore’s entire press conference below, courtesy of JATV.
