BURNSVILLE, MINNESOTA — Body cam footage from March 17 shows a heavily-charged incident between police in Burnsville, Minnesota and a man in a McDonald’s parking lot, waving a knife. After reasoning with the man for several minutes, police officers eventually shot him dead. This week, three of the officers involved were cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury.
After initially trying to calm the man down, the Burnsville police officers realized he was clearly experiencing a wild episode of some kind and could not be reasoned with. As the eight-minute video shows, one of the cops smashes the man’s car window, while the five officers yell at him to drop his knife.
After employing a taser to subdue Kong, the cops realized it wasn’t having its intended effect. With Kong still waving the knife, the officers were prepared to use deadly force in the event he left the car.
After police continue to plead with him to drop the knife, Kong opens his car door and runs out, knife in hand. The cops then opened fire, shooting him 15 times. Emergency responders pronounced him dead.
Three of the five officers who responded to the call – Taylor Jacobs, John Mott and Maksim Yakovlev – have been cleared of any wrongdoing in the death, after a grand jury deemed their use of deadly force justified given the circumstances.
A toxicology report showed Map Kong was high on amphetamine and methamphetamine. He had also been suffering from mental illness and chemical dependency for several years.
