SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Officer-involved shooting incidents are no longer a rare event, Sioux Falls Police Chief Jon Thum said on Wednesday.
“We used to look at these events as happening occasionally,” Thum said. “Officers now look at these as events that will happen. When I started my career these were rare occurrences.”
Thum said he would not describe the frequency of officer involved shootings as regular but statistically, they aren’t rare.
Wednesday’s incident was particularly violent as law officers exchanged gun fire with the suspect. The suspect had hostages inside the convenience store at 14th and Minnesota. A police sniper shot the suspect, who was declared dead at the scene. According to officials, the incident lasted about 40 minutes from the time it was reported at about 3 a.m.
Thum started as a police officer in Sioux Falls in 2005. He became chief in 2021. It’s been a number of years since there has been an officer-involved shooting incident that involved the level of gunfire as Wednesday’s, he said.
One of the most recent with multiple gunfire exchanges was in 2011, Thum said.
On May 18, 2011, a suspect fired at least six times toward police officers who returned 48 rounds, according to the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation and Attorney General report. The suspect died after he was shot 14 times by law officers.
There were three officer involved shootings in the state in 2011, according to the AG’s website.
Thum said there have been double-digit involved shootings in Sioux Falls or the Sioux Falls area since roughly 2021.
The South Dakota Attorney General’s website shows one in April of this year in Sioux Falls. It listed at least 10 since Oct. 28, 2021, in Sioux Falls or Minnehaha County.
“I’ve had the misfortune (of being on staff) when a lot of incidents happened,” Thum said.
One of those incidents was two years to the date from Wednesday.
Two years ago on July 3, 2022, a Sioux Falls Police SWAT team member shot and killed a suspect in a house in Sioux Falls, according to the Attorney General. The AG’s office and the state’s DCI ruled that the shooting was justified.
The investigation ruled that law enforcement “exhausted every reasonable option to safely bring (suspect) into custody on his warrant before his statements and actions made it clear that deadly force was required,” then Attorney General Mark Vargo said in a news release.
Each incident “has uniquely different circumstaces,” Thum said.
As on July 3, 2022, a SWAT team responded to Wednesday’s incident. Yet, SWAT won’t be the first on the scene.
Patrol officers are often the first to respond to situations, which could turn into an officer-involved incident. They are trained to respond to very high stress situations, Thum said.
“People watch the movies and think this may be a casual day … and this is not. It’s impactful on the officers,” Thum said.
The police department prioritizes after care for the officers involved in a shooting incident, he said.
Sioux Falls is not the only site for officer-involved shootings. At least two happened in Rapid City in 2023. Other incidents include Dell Rapids, Huron and Sturgis.
