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11/22/2024 11:49:12 am

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Police Kill Man Who Attempted To Run Them Over; Suspect Wanted For Posting Threatening Videos

Police officers fatally shot a man in suburban Pennsylvania on Tuesday after he allegedly tried to run them over with his car. He had an arrest warrant for posting videos online threatening to kill police and FBI agents.

Authorities were on the way to serve the warrant to Joseph Anthony Pacini, 52, but he had already left his apartment in a car. When police caught up with him at an intersection, Pacini allegedly backed his car into a police vehicle then shifted forward looking like he was going to run over other officers. Five officers shot and killed him.

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Urban Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said his officers feared for their lives and "they did what they had to do." Police believe Pacini suffered from mental illness.

"When police have to deal with somebody with mental illness, it could be violent, it could be passive, you just don't know," said Chitwood. "The unfortunate thing in this case, he's got a vehicle, the vehicle was his weapon." 

One of the videos posted on YouTube showed a close-up shot of a middle-aged white man with closely cropped hair and glasses in a rambling tirade, in some parts mentioning that the CIA and the FBI were out to kill him. He also threatened a Pennsylvania police officer in the post laced with profanity.

Another quirky line in the video was Pacini's reference to singer Sara Bareilles whom he said was "his twin flame soul mate." "I might be dead or in prison by the time Sara Bareilles hears this. She's the only one who can save me," said Pacini.

The killing comes less than two weeks after the murder of two New York City police officers while sitting in their marked car on December 20. The assassin Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who shot himself a short time later, referenced online that he would avenge the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in Staten Island in the hands of white police officers.

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