The Ohio father who fatally shot his three young sons execution style this week was eerily calm when police responded to the scene and arrested him at gunpoint, WLWT-TV reports.
Newly released body camera footage shows the moment that police officers arrived at the Monroe Township property in Clermont County where 32-year-old Chad Doerman gunned down the boys, ages 3, 4 and 7.
“You show me your hands now!” one officer yells at Doerman, who was sitting on steps outside his house with a rifle next to him. “Stand up and walk to me!”
Doerman did not comply with the officers’ demands. Police moved in and forced him to the ground before putting him in handcuffs, at which point he told them: “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
When asked by one of the officers what was going on, Doerman responded with one word – “nothing” – as the boys’ bodies laid mere feet away.
Doerman later complained about being uncomfortable on the ground and asked to get up. An officer helps him up and then he is seeing being led away from the house before the body camera footage ends.
Authorities allege that Doerman confessed to lining up the boys and shooting them one by one and had planned the horrific attack for months, according to WSAZ-TV. Police have not disclosed publicly whether they have identified a motive.
Doerman’s daughter escaped the bloodshed, reportedly running from the home and screaming that “her father was killing everyone,” according to ABC News.
One of the boys is said to have attempted to escape, but Doerman caught the child in a field, forced him back to the house and shot him. Doerman also shot the boys’ 34-year-old mother in the hand; she survived and was treated at a hospital.
Prosecutors have charged Doerman with three counts of aggravated murder. He is being held on $20 million bond.
“This is by far the most sickening, horrifying crime I have seen,” Clermont County Prosecutor Mark Tekulve said at a court hearing on Friday, according to WKRC-TV. “I can only imagine the terror these little boys felt and experienced as their father — their protector — was murdering them.”
Emergency operators received multiple 911 calls about the shooting. A woman called to say that “her babies had been shot,” according to WSAZ-TV.
In another 91¡ call, a passerby told dispatchers that a female, believed to be Doerman’s daughter, was running down a road and yelling about her father killing her brothers.
Alexis Spoonamore, a neighbor, said she heard the gunshots ring out.
“I was sitting in the garage, and all of a sudden, I hear ‘boom, boom’ and like five more, and I was like ‘that’s seven shots,’” Spoonamore told WLWT-TV. “I’m shaking. It was a lot. It was bad.”
The boys’ aunt is raising money to help pay for funeral expenses, writing on a GoFundMe page: “My sister lost her three amazing babies yesterday. Nothing will make this better, it will never be okay. But please if you can find it in your heart to help relieve the financial burden of this tragedy, please donate. No one should have to go through this.”
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[Featured image: Chad Doerman/Clermont County Sheriff’s Office; Handout]
