SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Springfield Township Police released body camera footage from a chaotic, multi-jurisdiction incident out of Summit County showing what started out as a disturbance in an IHOP and turned into to a pursuit involving a semi truck and a police shooting.
Saturday evening, Springfield Township officers responded to the restaurant after 34-year-old Jeffery Latson from Georgia got into a verbal altercation with one of the IHOP employees, police said.
Watch our coverage from over the weekend:
RELATED: Officer injured after semi-truck pursuit begins at Springfield Township restaurant
Police found Latson in a semi truck in a Walmart parking lot. Two officers jumped onto the running board and tried to get him out of the truck. Springfield Township Police Chief Jack Simone said Latson refused commands, and the scuffle escalated.
From another angle of the body cam footage, you can see one officer, Harold Britt, still on the semi as Latson pulled away.
Britt fell off and broke a leg; he is now home recovering, according to police.
"His spirits are good," Simone said. "He seems to be doing well. Our focus right now is obviously on our injured officer and their family."
Video footage from the Ohio Department of Transportation showed Springfield Township Police pursued Latson on I-77 but ultimately called it off, concerned about the safety of other drivers.
"At that point, they can't predict what the driver of the semi truck would do or could do," Simone said.
Investigators said that at some point, Latson connected a trailer to the semi and, within 15 minutes, encountered Akron Police and the Summit County Sheriff's Office deputies.
"This was a chaotic call. There were a lot of different jurisdictions involved in this," Akron Police Chief Brian Harding said.
According to police, Latson struck two police cruisers and two other cars on East Market Street before two officers and one sheriff's deputy fired their guns at him.
Latson was shot and was transported to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
"We understand that when we come to work everyday, that these are the dangers that we face and that we are going to be forced, at times, to make split-second decisions to defend our lives and the public that we serve," Harding said.
Springfield Police filed the following charges against Latson:
- Aggravated menacing
- Obstruction official business
- Willful fleeing
- Felonious assault on a police officer
Akron Police will release their body camera footage within a week; the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting.
Simone said after watching the videos from his officers and hearing about how the ordeal ended, he is relieved that everybody survived.
"I can only imagine it could have been much, much worse," Simone said.
