The Barry County area police have only been using body cameras for a year, and encounters like this is exactly why they made the change.


19 Year old Chase Slater of Hastings, Michigan was discovered vandalizing police vehicles in the Barry County area police parking lot. He had found and used a large rock to smash in several windshields.

When cops confronted the teenager, he made advances towards the cop, while still wielding the rock. It was at this moment that the officer had a quick decision to make, would he shoot the troubled teen who was clearly planning to do further harm, or use his stun gun?

Footage from the body cam that can be seen at on News Channel 3's report, shows the officer quickly pulling out his stun gun to subdue the teenager. Because of the move the department made to use the body cams, there is no question as to how this encounter went down. Barry County officials have been quoted by WWMT saying, "I think he handled it exactly how I would want any of our officers to handle it; he probably would have been justified in using his gun to shoot this person, because that subject was awful close with him."  It is believed that Slater was hoping to commit suicide by cop, as there is no other motive known, at this time, for his actions.

Slater was arrested on site after being subdued and has been charged with assaulting an officer and four additional counts of damaging or destroying someone's personal property.

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