A Missouri store clerk has apologized after livestreaming the death of a police officer on Facebook, and a local newspaper has apologized for linking to the video.
Bonnette Kymbrelle Meeks, 26, shot and killed North County Police Cooperative officer Michael Langsdorf, 40, on Sunday. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch apologized for briefly linking to the two-minute Facebook video showing Langdorf’s final moments, according to the Post-Dispatch.
“I don’t know why I went to Facebook. I don’t know,” the store clerk Kashina Harper said, crying. “I regret it. I didn’t know the officer was going to die.”
Harper, 34, used the dying officer’s radio to call for help before filming.
“I’m the one who tried to save that man,” Harper said. “I went to his walkie-talkie. I said, ‘A police is down. Somebody shot him. 6250 Page. Can you please hurry up?’ I was calling for help. I held his hands.”
Assistant Chief of Police Ron Martin detailed the current state of the investigation in a Monday press conference. Langsdorf confronted Meeks at Clay’s Wellston Food Market Restaurant in St. Louis County on Sunday after responding to a call about a man trying to cash a bad check.
Meeks was the man trying to use the bad check, according to Martin. Langsdorf tussled with Meeks, who eventually pulled a gun and turned it on a store employee before turning it on Langsdorf. The police officer lunged at Meeks, who shot the officer and ran.
Police later arrested Meeks, who confessed to killing Langsdorf.
Meeks has a long criminal history in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is thought to have moved to the St. Louis area in January.
“It is an extensive, extensive criminal history, and it is violent,” Martin said of Meeks’ rap sheet.
The North County Police Cooperative is a new force started in 2015. Langsdorf is the first officer from the force to be killed.
“We’ve never had an officer-involved shooting in the four years we’ve been here, and we’ve never had a police officer killed in the line of duty,” Martin said. “Mike is our first one. It’s pretty tough, pretty tough to get a grasp on it all.”
Martin had known and worked with Langsdorf for two decades.
“You want to talk about a guy who just liked to be the police. It was in his blood. He wanted to help people, you know. He’d drop a dime and be there for anybody, anywhere,” Martin said about Langsdorf.
