SDPD Body Cam Captures College Area Shootout

***Volume Warning

A gun battle caught on an officer's body-worn camera was released Monday by the San Diego County District Attorney's Office along with their conclusion that officers were justified in using deadly force in the College Area shooting that took place last year.

Joseph Darwish, 28, was shot on June 23, 2018, by San Diego police officers responding to a call about a man yelling and creating a disturbance.

There was a smell of smoke coming from inside Darwish's unit at Tuscany Place on the 4800 block on Rolando Court that Saturday night.

Officers knocked on the door for approximately 30 minutes according to the investigation and called for fire officials to go into the unit to see what may be burning.

Two seconds after a firefighter forced the door open, shots rang out.

Eight seconds later, an officer was down telling his colleague "Can't move. Can't move."

Then, one of the officers can be heard making the radio call, "Shots fired. Shots fired."

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Throughout the dramatic video, you can hear officers trying to get their wounded partner to safety while screaming for a rifle to match the firepower they were facing from the suspect inside his condo unit.

Darwish was wearing a ballistic vest and was armed with two homemade weapons - one an assault weapon and the other a pistol - when he opened fire on the officers, prompting them to crawl for cover and eventually break open a window at the end of a corridor and drop 10 to 20 feet to the ground.

SDPD identified the two wounded officers as Francisco Roman, a 3-year veteran, and Dan Bihum, who was with the department for 18 years.

No firefighters were injured.

Darwish died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office.

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