SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Court documents have provided more detail in an officer-involved shooting at a Yankton school parking lot last week.
Charges have been filed against 40-year-old Andrew Jondahl, of Watertown, who was hospitalized after being injured in the shooting. Jondahl is facing two charges of aggravated assault against a law enforcement (class 2 felonies) and one charge of possession of a loaded firearm while intoxicated (class 1 felony).
Yankton police received the call at around 7:44 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5 with the report of an intoxicated man threatening to harm himself. The location was the Yankton High School Summit Activities Center. At the time of the call, a wrestling triangular was being held at the school.
Police were told the man, identified later as Jondahl, was intoxicated and had either a shotgun or a rifle on his lap while sitting in his pickup in the school parking lot.
A probable cause affidavit filed in the case says Jondahl had been intoxicated inside the school and was asked to leave. Surveillance footage reportedly shows him vomiting in the gym and staggering as he walked.
The person who called police met with Jondahl at his pickup after he left the school and found him sitting in the driver’s seat with a gun across his lap and more guns in the vehicle. Jondahl reportedly made comments of self-harm to the reporting party.
The document says when police arrived, they attempted to contact Jondahl in the pickup, but that he was non-compliant, yelling profanities at the officers.
At some point, Jondahl got out of the vehicle with two guns, at which point the affidavit says officers fired several rounds.
Jondahl was shot and was given medical aid by officers and a responding ambulance before being transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation processed the scene after the shooting, finding two shotguns on the ground near the drivers side door of the pickup, as well as shotgun shells near the door and in the pocket of Jondahl’s coat.
Last week, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said Jondahl was shot multiple times but was in serious but non-life threatening injuries. He called the officers’ shooting “a model implementation” of the use-of-force policy, noting that all shots by officers were fired in a direction away from the school.
DCI also found two napkins with writing on them in the pickup. One, according to the document, had statements referencing self-harm, and the other had writing that made reference to cops being present and the statement “I will kill them until they kill me.”
The two officers who fired shots gave statements to DCI saying officers had given Jondahl loud verbal commands, and that they were in clear police uniforms and identified themselves as police.
The officers said when Jondahl exited the vehicle he had at least one long gun in his hands with the stock on or near his shoulder. The officers said they feared for their lives and and the lives of the other officers.
Jondahl has yet to be arrested as of Friday morning, though a warrant for his arrest has been issued, with a $100,000 cash bond being set.
