Video Reveals Exact Moment Police Shot Hurricane Irma Evacuee

Newly released video footage shows police shooting a 76-year-old man to death in a North Carolina hospital, after he refused to drop a gun.

Joseph Cook had reportedly stopped at the Novant Health Huntersville Medical Center on his way up to New York on Sep. 10, 2017. He was evacuating his home in Florida. It’s unclear what he was seeking treatment for.

In the video, which has been released after a Freedom of Information Act request and published by DailyMail, Cook is shot eight times by Huntersville Police officers Michael Joseph, 32, and Travis Watts, 27. The angle from Joseph’s body camera doesn’t give a clear view of Cook, though the panicked officers are clearly concerned about a gun he was holding.

“Sir, put that gun down,” one of the officers shouted continually, even after Cook was on the ground.

“I’ve got one white male, multiple gun shot wounds,” another officer says into his radio.

The full video, reportedly acquired by the Ledger Inquirer, consists of approximately nine minutes of the officers speaking with each other in the aftermath of the shooting. Cook is seen lying on the ground with blood spattered all around him, though his gun is never clearly seen.

“He looks deceased,” one of the police officers said in the clip.

“How in the world did he get a gun at a hospital?” wonders the other. “Good gosh man, he pointed right at us.”

The two cops were reportedly responding to a call from a nurse, who saw Cook take the gun out of his suitcase at around 11:30 p.m. She alerted the unarmed security guard on the premises, and the two of them heard a gunshot inside of Cook’s room. By the time Cook walked out of his room with the firearm, police had been alerted.

Watts and Joseph told the State Bureau of Investigations that the felt threatened by Cook, which is why the shot him. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office ruled that Watts and Joseph were justified in their actions in December.

The SBI later realized that Cook was an evacuee, while police traced the gun back to a purchase he had made in 2011. However, they told DailyMail that it remains unclear whether he was licensed to carry the weapon.

The video was released in the midst of a heated debate over guns in the United States, as Sacramento is outraged over the police shooting of 22-year-old Stephon Clark. Clark was unarmed at the time of his death, though police said they mistook the white iPhone in his hand for a gun.

Meanwhile, some students from the Parkland, Florida school shooting last month are continuing their fight for tighter gun control laws following the March For Our Lives rallies held across the country over the weekend.