Bellingham police officer to share ‘hardest day of my life’ Tuesday on new TV show
March 12, 2017, isn’t a day Bellingham police officer Jeremiah Leland particularly enjoys talking about, but it’s not a day he’s ever going to forget, either.
“It was probably the hardest day of my life,” Leland told The Bellingham Herald in an interview on Saturday.
Leland said he thought it was important he talk about the incident he faced that day, which ended when he fatally shot Manuel Gonzalez along Railroad Avenue in downtown Bellingham after the 28-year-old man, who video showed had already stabbed another man in the neck a block away and minutes later charged Leland still holding a knife.
The incident, which was captured on Leland’s body camera, a nearby traffic camera and by citizens with video cameras, will be one of three profiled in the next episode of “Body Cam,” a new series that utilizes body camera footage from officers in the field to profile the danger law enforcement faces and the heroism displayed. The episode, which is titled “Disorderly Conduct” is scheduled to premiere at 7 p.m. Tuesday (with a replay at 10 p.m.) on Investigation Discovery (channel 271 on Comcast).
Leland said crews filmed interviews with him and fellow officer Mike Shannon last summer to run with the body cam footage, other video and a handful of other interviews in the segment, which is approximately 15 minutes long.
“They seemed to have pretty good intentions when they approached me about it,” Leland told The Herald. “They weren’t looking to put it in a bad light. They wanted to know more about what happened and the emotional effects from it — they were looking at the bigger story.”
The story began at approximately 4:20 p.m. on March 12, when video shows Gonzalez involved in a fight and stabbing a man in the neck on East Holly Street. Witnesses chased him a block north, as Gonzalez lugged an overstuffed black plastic bag toward the downtown bus station.
Leland arrived shortly afterward and confronted Gonzalez outside of the music store on Magnolia Street, where Gonzalez refused commands to drop the weapon, instead charging at the officer, video showed. Leland fired his department-issued handgun four times, fatally wounding Gonzalez.
It took Whatcom County Prosecutor Dave McEachran less than a month to rule the shooting was justified, but Leland said it understandably took him a few months longer and lots of support from his peers at the department, his family, his church and his faith to work through what had happened.
“You know it’s something you sign up for with this job,” said Leland, who is in his fifth year with the Bellingham Police Department after growing up in Lynden. “But the scars will be with me emotionally for the rest of my life. My life was different while I learned to live and thrive with that scar.”
Nearly two years after the incident, Leland said he no longer thinks about the incident every day, unless he’s asked to sit down and discuss it.
And Leland said he thought it was important that he talk about it when the show approached him to discuss what happened.
“I’m thankful for the opportunity to tell one story of what my brothers and sisters in blue do every day all over the country,” Leland told The Herald. “My hope is that when people watch the episode, they’ll see that we’re only human, and that we’re just like everybody else. We’re just willing to face those hard things in life and be there at traumatic moments.”
It was being there for people in those traumatic moments that Leland said drew him to becoming a police officer. At the age of 11 or 12, he said he realized he’d either “be a cop or a pastor, because they help people when they need it most.”
By appearing on Tuesday’s show, Leland said he hopes he can show a little bit of how difficult that can be.
“The stresses and risks we face every day, we carry on our shoulders and we bring home to our families every day,” he said. “We just want to be there for people — whether they understand or appreciate it. I hope this show gives people a little glimpse of what we can face every day. It was a humbling opportunity to represent our department and our family and what they do in a positive and honorable light.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2018 at 5:00 AM.
