Officer Resigns After Shooting At Car With Child In It

[Pat McCotter]

Dangerous Chase - Officer Resigns After Shooting At Car With Child In It
Jennings Police Officer May Not Have Known The Driver Was A Woman And That She Had A Child In The Car.
5:27 p.m. CST, January 10, 2011

JENNINGS, MO (KTVI - FOX2now.com) —
Jennings Police, today, revealed the dash cam video that led to the downfall of one of its officers. The three year veteran's accused of shooting at a suspect's car that had a child in the back seat.

Officer David Hauck resigned Friday. FOX 2 Investigator Chris Hayes broke the story last week and now reveals how it all went down.

The Jennings officer in question is not in the picture until the end of the 30 minute plus pursuit.

The suspect driver, Latyra Roberts, leads Velda City's Police Chief on the pursuit. They reach speeds over 100 mph on I-70. The pursuit continues onto the streets of St. Louis at high speeds and past red lights.

Suspect Roberts nearly misses a head on with a school bus. She drove over sidewalks and on a lawn to get around concrete planters. She nearly t-boned a vehicle and headed into areas where kids crossed the street in front of her. She also sped the wrong way on a street divided by a median.

At the end of the pursuit, an undercover St. Louis Police Officer throws out a stop stick. Then Jennings Officer David Hauck takes three shots at the tires. Officer Hauck appears to yell something as he runs around the back of his unit. You can hear him call the shooting into dispatch, as heard on our Fox 2 report.

You could hear Hauck say, "City attempted stop sticks and I fired several shots, striking the front tire. Have them advise."

The stop stick is what ended the chase. Velda City's Police Chief caught up with the vehicle about 8 blocks later, then arrested the suspect after a fight. She was pregnant and she had a one year old child in a safety seat. However, a police photo documents that the seat was laying loose, and unbuckled, in the back seat. Police have charged the female suspect with endangering that child, among other things.

Fox 2 has learned that Officer Hauck may not have known the driver was a woman -- or that she had a child in the car.

The Fox Files pulled police radio traffic from his district and we heard no mention of those facts -- only that the suspect assaulted an officer by hitting a police car.

His precinct radio traffic said, "Assault first, law enforcement officer pursuit."

The other precinct channel, used by Bel Ridge, did mention the driver was a woman with a child in the back. Bel Ridge backed off the pursuit. You could hear Bel Ridge's, precinct #2 radio, "You said an infant was in the back seat? [Officer response] Affirmative."

Jennings interim Police Chief Troy Doyle said officer Haulk violated the Departments new 'use of force' policy, because the suspect was not driving directly at the officer. He said, "These incidents cannot be tolerated and will not be tolerated. Our citizens expect more out of our law enforcement agencies and again, we are at fault, and we are dealing with it."