ST. LOUIS (KMOV) — A St. Louis couple say they are surprised they’re alive after they ran away from the gunman who had invaded their home. Minutes later, the man fatally shot a police officer.
Steve and Mimi Haag described the episode that led up to Saturday evening’s attack on Officer Tamarris L. Bohannon, 29, who was responding to their 911 call in the Tower Park Heights neighborhood of south St. Louis.
The Haags were at home, expecting a friend for dinner, when they heard a bang in the alley behind their home.
“I heard this guy screaming, ‘I’ve been shot, I’ve been shot,” said Mimi Haag.
She went to the alley and recognized the man as a frequent dumpster diver in the neighborhood; he appeared to have suffered a wound to his arm. She went back into the house and told her husband to call 911.
After Steve Haag gave the police the information, his wife took the phone to the back patio and stayed on the line until the police arrived.
“I came back in,” she said, “and there was my husband at the front door in our foyer with a man standing there. … I saw something dark in his hand and he said, ‘Ma’am, hang up your phone.’”
She said she stood there, startled, and he told her again to hang up. She then obliged and fled through the back door with her husband. The couple ran through the alley to the sidewalk, where they found the officers who had responded to their 911 call.
“We’re talking to them, and I hear a pop, and I look over and an officer is just laying on the sidewalk where he’d been shot,” Steve Haag said. “He wasn’t moving.”
The Haags said they believe the gunman shot the officer from a second-story window in their home.
For the next few hours, they said they heard several gunshots, before they left the neighborhood around 9 p.m.
Around 5 a.m. Sunday, the SWAT team used tear gas to force the suspect out of the house.
Police said the suspect, a 43-year-old man, was taken to the hospital for evaluation and released into police custody.
Later Sunday, Officer Bohannon died in a hospital from a gunshot wound to the head. He had been on the force for more than three years.
Another officer wounded at the same time was released from the hospital after treatment for a leg injury.
No shots were fired by officers during the standoff.
The home suffered several broken windows and glass door panels from the tear gas canisters. Haag said they’ll have the home professionally cleaned to get rid of the residual gas.
“Those who want to defund the police need to rethink that, they stand between us and this stuff,” Steve Haag said. “We are so grateful and thankful.”
The couple said their strong faith has helped them through the ordeal and believe a guardian angel was watching over them as they turned their backs to the gunman to escape out the back door.
“I can’t believe this happened and that we walked out of that house without that man shooting us … standing there in our foyer with his gun,” Mimi Haag said.
Eight St. Louis officers have been shot in the line of duty since June.
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