A Virginia police officer who shot and wounded his sergeant says he feared the sergeant was going to rape him.
James City County police officer Michael Rusk (left) is facing criminal charges in connection with the January shooting outside a bar.
Investigators initially said the shooting happened as a result of a “verbal argument” between the two off-duty officers after a night of drinking.
However, the 911 call and a surveillance video tell a different story.
According to WAVY’s 10 On Your Side, Rusk made a 911 call in which he confessed to shooting Sgt. Christopher Gibson outside a Williamsburg bar on January 25.
In the 911 call, Rusk gave his name and badge number to the dispatcher before saying, “I shot Sergeant Gibson!”
“I told him ‘no’ and he just kept going. I told him to stop. He kept going. I thought he was gonna rape me,” Rusk told the 911 dispatcher.
He went on to say, “I pulled a gun on him because he was [expletive] advancing on me.”
Rusk’s dad Jason Rusk tells 10 On Your Side that his son was sexually harassed for a year.
“We just kind of wrote it off as a superior looking after a subordinate,” said Jason Rusk.
“But it started to get creepy. [Gibson] would just show up out of nowhere, on streets where Michael’s girlfriends lived,” he said.
“There was extremely inappropriate touching. The stalking, the grooming,” he said.
The video backs up Rusk’s story. The footage shows the two men inside the bar sitting at a table across from each other.
Then Gibson moved to the other side of the table and sat next to Rusk. He reached under the table and Rusk seemed to hesitate.
More footage outside the bar shows Gibson put his arm around Rusk who shoved his arm off and put a finger in his face before walking away.
“If our client was a female, this case would be drastically different. It’s a clear self-defense issue,” said Peyton Akers, one of Rusk’s lawyers.
“It’s very unfortunate that the narrative that’s out there isn’t the narrative that’s going to come to light at trial, if this goes to trial. I believe the 911 call will play a major role in our client’s innocence,” Akers said.
Watch the video below.
