Phoenix Police released body-camera footage on Thursday afternoon of an April 14 shootout between officers and suspect Nicholas Cowan, which left officer Denise Bruce-Jones hospitalized.
Cowan’s ex-girlfriend called 911 and said she was at a Marathon gas station and the man was at home and seemingly suicidal.
“I think if the cops show up there, it’s gonna be...I don’t think it’s gonna go good,” the woman said on the 911 call. She then told the dispatcher Cowan had a gun, AZ Family reports.
In the body-camera footage, Bruce-Jones and another officer were at the gas station talking to the woman. The woman tells Bruce-Jones she sees Cowan’s Prius pull up to the gas station. “Oh my god, that’s him,” the woman said in the video.
Cowan’s Prius turns into the gas station and stops a short distance away from Bruce-Jones and the woman standing near the gas station entrance, police said. Bruce-Jones attempts to tell Cowan to get out of the car; then, he starts shooting at officers from inside his vehicle, according to police. Bruce-Jones is hit by the first gunshot and immediately falls to the ground. The other officer immediately takes cover behind his patrol car and returns fire.
Cowan fled the scene in the Prius and was captured three days later, police say. He was wounded during the gas station shooting and was treated at a hospital.
On Monday, Cowan was released from the hospital and booked into jail that evening on two counts of attempted first-degree murder, among other charges.
Bruce-Jones was moved from the hospital to a rehab facility on Friday. She is a 24-year veteran of the Phoenix Police Department. She also has a spouse who’s a Phoenix police officer.
