Chilling video shows alleged gunman taunting Springfield Police
An armed suspect taunting police in Springfield has the city’s mayor asking: “Is this what it is coming to?”
Police rushed to the scene downtown at 7:25 p.m. Sunday after a ShotSpotter activation “indicating five rounds of gunfire” brought them to 43-year-old Jose Montanez flashing a gun around in the street.
The department’s Real-Time Analysis Center’s (R-TAC) city camera recorded the suspect allegedly firing his gun prior to the first officers’ arrival.
Montanez soon ran up the street while continuing to point his firearm in the direction of officers and bystanders, police said. He even dropped the gun once and police said they spotted another clip on his belt. The gun was reported stolen out of Ludlow.
After he ran out of view of the city camera, the suspect tossed his gun in the back of the nearby high school and was arrested soon after without incident, police said. The weapon and extra magazine were also recovered.
Mayor Domenic Sarno said there’s no place for this type of reckless gunplay.
“Is this what it is coming to? Our courts are holding no one accountable, especially repeat violent criminal offenders who are allowed to run roughshod on our streets and neighborhoods, while our brave and dedicated men and women in blue risk their lives with arrest, after arrest, after arrest to keep all our residents and business community safe,” Sarno said.
He called on the courts to get tough on Montanez and not “just ‘pat him on the head’ and release him right back to our streets and in our neighborhoods!”
Montanez was due in court Monday on charges of carrying a loaded firearm without a license, discharging it within 500 feet of a building, A&B with a dangerous weapon and disturbing the peace, along with other related counts.
The DA’s spokesman and the Springfield Police could not say Monday night if he was held, with Sarno telling the Herald if he isn’t, “I’ll raise holy hell.”
“The outcome of this call is a huge credit to all of the officers on scene who showed incredible and courageous restraint in this situation, and, due to their keen observation during a fast-moving incident, were able to avoid an officerinvolved shooting. Reloading or moving the slide forward only takes a moment and likely would have had a much different end result,” Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood said.
She added bystanders were in danger and “this situation could have changed at any moment, and we are fortunate it ended as it did.”