MINNEAPOLIS — It's been four days since a gunman opened fire on police officers who were responding to a routine car accident in Fargo.
Three officers were shot — one of them fatally — while the other two continue their recoveries. Although they still have a long way to go, both officers are doing well enough to talk to visiting family members and friends at the hospital.
But those officers weren't the only victims of the now-dead shooter. Twenty-five-year-old Karlee Koswick was also shot — twice.
On July 14, Koswick was in a minor car accident and called the police to the scene. She was waiting for them to arrive, and a tow truck, when the shooter took aim at both her and the officers.
In an interview with KARE 11's Jana Shortal from her Fargo hospital room Tuesday, Koswick said there was nothing remarkable about the fender bender that drew officers Jake Wallin, Tyler Hawes and Andrew Dotas to the scene.
"I got in a minor car accident and the police were called," she said. "My car had to be towed because the airbags deployed, so I was waiting on a tow truck."
As she waited on the tow, she said those officers who came to help were really kind, but she was still a little shaken, so she called her dad.
"I called my dad because I was just trying to figure out what to do," Koswick said. "It was my first car accident and I heard gunfire. And I turned around and the police were on the ground behind me, and I tried to drive behind a tree and I was shot twice — one in my right leg and one in my left hip."
Koswick said she remembers throwing her phone, but not disconnecting from her father.
"I saw the police respond. I saw them yelling an officer was down and then EMTs came, and I was being loaded into an ambulance," Koswick recalled. "My dad was on the phone the whole time; he heard me on the ground screaming."
She's been heavily sedated in the hospital on pain medications since. But she is aware that Officer Wallin died, and that Officers Hawes and Dotas were shot, too.
"I can't imagine what their families are going through," she said. "It must be awful for what they are going through and I hope for a speedy and solid recovery for the officers injured, and I hope the best for the family of the officer who did not make it.
"I'm very grateful to have survived it and to be getting through, and just hoping for the best recovery I can make."
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