Video showed a meth-drunk Oklahoma woman being arrested in a cop’s car for crawling and barking before she managed to remove her handcuffs, find the cop’s assault rifle, and shoot out the window.
Rachel Zion Clay, 36, was arrested during a welfare check last Friday afternoon after homeowner Dale Moses called authorities about Clay’s erratic behavior.
Responding officers said they only planned to arrest Clay, not arrest her, when they put double-lock handcuffs on her and placed her on the back of a police cruiser.
Shocking footage from inside the squad car shows what happened next: Clay uncuffed her right wrist, reached the console at the front of the car and unlocked the gun compartment before retrieving an AR-15 assault rifle.
Rachel Zion Clay slipped out of her handcuffs before reaching forward into the car and grabbing the officer’s assault rifle, which she then loaded
The officers and Moses are seen just before the shooting, calmly discussing the situation outside the vehicle
Clay then points the gun out the rear window, aiming at the responding officers and the homeowner
She blindly fires nine rounds from the gun, happily grazing only Moses and one officer, who were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries
Clay is then seen loading a magazine into the gun, turning on the rifle’s flashlight, aiming it out the rear window, and firing.
An officer and Moses were injured in the shooting when bullets grazed them, but both were treated for non-life-threatening injuries and discharged from hospital.
Clay barricaded herself in the vehicle for over four hours before surrendering, and officers found methamphetamines in her system.
She has now been charged with three felony counts of fatal shooting for the shooting and is being held on $1 million bail.
The shooting destroyed the police vehicle as Clay shot out the rear windows, leaving glass and debris strewn everywhere
Officers duck behind the car and try to stop Clay, but she barricades herself inside the car for over four hours
Grady County Undersheriff Gary Boggess called the situation a “freak deal” and noted that Clay was handcuffed correctly before escaping from them
Grady County Undersheriff Gary Boggess explained the situation, saying, “While she was in the back seat of the squad car, she was able to free her wrist from the handcuffs and the handcuffs were properly applied.”
“She was able to reach our consoles. There are several switches. One is a gun switch to unlock the gun lock, and she found it, unlocked the gun cabinet, and was able to retrieve an AR-15 rifle,” Boggess said.
“Then she was able to figure out how to put a cartridge in it, set it on fire, and she fired about 10 cartridges at our MPs and a civilian,” he continued.
Boggess said police will make changes to their procedures following the incident, including changing the lineup of their police cruisers.
“One, I would say, is our console. Where there was actually a gun and she could see it, it will be replaced. We’ll put a switch somewhere else in the vehicle to disable our gun,” Boggess said.
He also stressed how rare the situation was and admitted he had never seen anything like it during his time with the department.
“It’s a freak deal. It’s probably one of those, I won’t say one in a million. But you know, it’s one of those deals you know, once it happens you go back and try to make sure it never happens again. And that’s what we’re looking at,” Boggess said.