There were a lot of ways that this could have gone, almost all of them too awful to contemplate. Thankfully, it ended the one right way it could have:
Body camera footage captured the standoff between cops and a criminal holding a baby hostage that began in the tiny town of St. George, Utah and finished in the desert in the northwestern portion of Arizona near Beaver Dam.
The incident only ended after a police sniper shot the 30-year-old suspect, Oscar Alcantara, dead, while he was holding a baby that he had kidnapped.
Here is a tip for anyone who might not know it: If you point a gun at a kid, the police are not going to play nice with you.
The incident was truly a harrowing one:
A police chase ensued with cops following the vehicle through St. George and out into the desert of southwestern Washington County before coming to a stop near the Beaver Dam across the Arizona border. ...
As officers attempted to negotiate with Alcantara, police snipers got into position.
On audio on the video, officers can be heard stating that they can see a gun being pointed at them.
'The gun is pointed right at us! Gun pointed at us!', an officer can be heard shouting.
Moments later a police sniper took aim.
'We've only got one shot at this!' his colleague can be heard stating before firing off the riskiest of rounds, killing Alcantara while he was still holding the baby.
The baby, thank God, was unharmed. Footage of the crisis, meanwhile, captures the terrible urgency of the moment:
As an aside, this may have been Alcantara's last hostage incident, but incredibly it wasn't his first—from 2015:
A man who police say held his girlfriend's father hostage for more than five hours earlier this week was charged Thursday in two separate cases.
Oscar Darwin Alcantara, 23, of West Valley City, was charged in one case with aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony, and two counts of domestic violence in the presence of children, a class A misdemeanor. He was charged in the other case with aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony; possession of a weapon by a restricted person and obstructing justice...
Would that the man had turned his life around in the intervening years. Thankfully, the baby is okay.
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