NORTH BRANCH, Minn. — North Branch Police released body-worn camera video of the night 36-year-old Jamie Crabtree was fatally shot by an officer.
In the video, officers can be heard telling Crabtree to put the gun down. The video also picks up Crabtree saying “I don’t want to live,” prior to shots being fired.
North Branch Police said officers rendered aid to Crabtree, however, the video doesn’t show it. Officers waited over 10 minutes before they approached Crabtree to place her in handcuffs.
Before they approached, officers can be heard telling Crabtree to “roll away from the gun,” and “we’ll help you, if you keep rolling away from that gun.”
The officers can be heard telling Crabtree a few times to not reach for the gun.
“She’s non-compliant. She refuses to get away from the gun at this point,” one of the of the officers said.
The officers requested a shield so they could get to Crabtree to help her.
Dale Anderson didn’t witness the deadly shooting, but he saw the aftermath. He said Crabtree was his neighbor.
“She was a very genuine person. She was very kind and loving,” Anderson said.
He said June 27 was a hard night.
“I wasn’t able to sleep that night, and I stayed up all night,” he said. “I miss her because I would see her every day and we would wave to each and she would always yell over to me, you know, ‘how you doing,’ and I’d say ‘yep, we’re all doing good here.’"
Sue Aberholden, executive director of NAMI Minnesota, said it’s important for mental health professionals to respond to a mental health crisis. She said it’s difficult when weapons are involved.
“It becomes more difficult for the crisis team to go out. They’re not really prepared for those situations, and that’s typically when police are called,” Aberholden said.
She said there are some situations when crisis teams will meet officers at locations because they have teams located in all 87 counties. She said crisis teams can resolve a lot of issues over the phone, but they need more funding.
“I think we could increase the investment in our crisis teams, again, it’s a small amount of money. We need to put more in there. There’s a drop in funding in the next biennium. We tried to work to get that funding up this last session, but there just wasn’t enough money to do that,” Aberholden said.
If you or someone you know is facing a mental health crisis, there is help available from the following resources:
Crisis Text Line – text “MN” to 741741 (standard data and text rates apply)
Crisis Phone Number in your Minnesota county
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, Talk to Someone Now
Throughout Minnesota call **CRISIS (**274747)
The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386