FARGO, N.D. — Law enforcement officers know that every day they put on their uniform and pin on a badge, there is the possibility - no matter how remote - that it could be their last time.
Fargo police officer Zach Robinson is among those who know it on a more personal level than most. The 7-year-veteran found himself the last man standing on July 14, as three colleagues lay on the ground shot, and an armed suspect who seemed hell-bent on trying to kill him.
”You work with what you’ve got… and I had me. Knew I had to get this guy down, get him in handcuffs. And what that took… deadly force," Robinson said.
Officer Robinson shot back at 37-year-old suspect Mohamad Barakat, who had opened fire with an assault weapon as the four officers responded to a routine fender bender. Officer Jake Wallin, who Robinson was training, was killed and officers Andrew Dotas and Tyler Hawes were critically wounded.
After the attack, investigators located 1,800 live rounds, three long rifles, four handguns, explosives, canisters with gasoline and a homemade hand grenade in Barakat's car. Three months after the shootout, Fargo police released an interview with Robinson, whose actions may have stopped a plan to carry out a larger mass shooting at two summer events that were unfolding in the community.
The officers were speaking with witnesses to the car accident and Robinson was walking to inspect one of the damaged vehicles when he heard a volley of gunfire. He recalls Officer Wallin and the others were to the north of the suspect, just 20 yards from where he was.
“That’s when I ran around the vehicle, saw the three guys on the ground, called it out, and then pushed past them because the suspect still wasn’t down yet, he wasn’t determined to not be a threat at that point.”
Robinson says he fired on the suspect from about 75 feet, reloaded, and emptied another clip but knew he had to get closer. He left the cover of the vehicle he was behind, was standing in the open, and said the suspect was still moving and a threat.
“Kept breathing, tried to control my breathing, stayed focused on the threat because he wasn’t down yet… we’re trained in an active shooter situation, you have to push past all injured people… it got to that point where he had to be eliminated," Robinson recalled. “He sat up with a pistol in his hand, I again engaged him, ran out of ammo, reloaded real quick, got back into the fight, shot again until he dropped."
After Barakat was placed in handcuffs, Robinson scrambled to where his fellow officers lay. He said it was clear Wallin was no longer alive, so he jumped in to help triage officer Dotas until paramedics arrived. “I did not think Andrew was going to live at all. I watched the color from his skin go away, I knew he was losing a ton of blood.“
Dotas would survive, as would Officer Tyler Hawes and a civilian on the scene who was shot. Robinson gave statements to superiors, then went back to the station where he called his wife and his father, who spent his career in law enforcement. "I started crying right away, kind of told 'em what happened, they were glad I was OK,” he said.
His bosses placed Robinson on leave but after two weeks at home, there was no question where he wanted to be.
“I wanted to come back right away," Robinson said, saying he had no thoughts of walking away from his chosen profession. "I obviously needed the time off, but when I had the opportunity to come back, I knew when I came back it was going to be a lot of conversations with people asking how I was doing, which I’m very grateful for, but I was glad to get back and see everybody again.”
Zach Robinson calls the months since the shootout "a whirlwind," saying he is grateful for the support of his family, the law enforcement community, and residents of Fargo who have been public about expressing their gratitude for what he did that fateful day. Robinson is trying to forge ahead but seems resigned to the fact the experience will be a constant companion.
“It plays in my mind like 1,000 times a day. Still doesn’t seem like it’s real this even happened."
What is real to Robinson is the absence of Jake Wallin, who was on the cusp of taking his exams and becoming a full-fledged member of the department. He says Wallin's family and fiancee are always on his mind, and that he knows how close he was to experiencing the same fate.
"You don’t ever know what your destiny is, what’s going to happen," Robinson said. "You go to a minor property crash, and this shooting happens. I’ve been on a hundred of 'em before, nothing happens, but then this happens, it’s a big reality check. “
“Nobody would have thought this would have happened here, right? But it did. A bad, bad day.”
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