Indian-origin man shot dead by San Antonio Police

Representation image (Pic: File Pic)

An Indian-origin man was shot and killed by the police in the US, San Antonio after he struck two policemen with his vehicle. The cops were trying to arrest him with a serious assault case against a female.

Sachin Kumar Sahoo was declared dead after a police officer named Tyler Turner shot him in San Antonio, Texas.

Sahoo died following the severe wounds he received during the dispute with the policeman, said the Bexar County Medical Examiner.

Sahoo originally hailed from Uttar Pradesh. Sources said he could have been a naturalised US citizen. According to a preliminary investigation, just before 6:30 pm on April 21, officers were dispatched to a home in Cheviot Heights in San Antonio for a report about Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, the San Antonio Police Department said in a statement to PTI.

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After arriving, the policemen found a 51-year-old woman injured after getting struck by a vehicle. The suspect Sahoo had fled the location. The lady was soon taken to the hospital in a critical condition. Later, San Antonio Police issued an arrest warrant for Sahoo.

A few hours later, neighbours called the police and informed them that Sahoo had returned to the location. The policemen then arrived at the location and tried contacting Sahoo when he struck the officers with his BMW SUV. Soon, one of the officers fired his weapon and Sahoo was pronounced dead on the scene itself.

Following the injuries, one of the officers was taken to the hospital and the other one was treated on the scene. No other casualties were found during the incident. This investigation remains ongoing, police said.

Police Chief Bill McManus said that Sahoo had run over the woman, who was his roommate, with his vehicle. The woman was undergoing several surgeries and was in critical condition.

The police had issued an arrest warrant for Sahoo and a couple of officers had gone to his known location on April 21 to see if they could find him and arrest him. They did find him and he jumped in his car. He pulled out of his driveway where the police officers blocked him with their vehicles but he was able to squeeze through them. Sahoo hit the officers with his vehicle. The other officer that was with him fired to stop him and struck him, McManus said.

He said the police are yet to look at the bodycam footage to determine further facts. A report in Kens5.com quoted Sahoo's ex-wife Leah Goldstein as saying that Sahoo was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

He suffered the past ten years with bipolar disorder," Goldstein said. "He also had symptoms of schizophrenia.

He couldn't understand what was wrong with him," she said in the news report. "He would hear voices. And hallucinates and just hears voices and just gets stuck in his own mind.

Goldstein described Sahoo as a great dad. I was a stay-at-home mom for many years," she said. "He provided for us.

(With PTI Inputs)