One officer dead, 2 injured after man opens fire in Fargo, North Dakota

On Friday, in Fargo, North Dakota, 37-year-old Mohamad Barakat shot and killed one police officer and wounded two more before a fourth officer killed him. The man's motive is unknown to authorities. 

Police Chief David Zibolski said police and firefighters were called to a "routine traffic accident" when Barakat, who was not involved in the accident, opened fire. 



Zibolski noted that a 25-year-old woman was also shot in the incident, but it is unclear who shot her. No firefighters were injured, but a firetruck was struck by gunfire. 

“The first thing we always want to know in a situation like this is, ‘Why?’” Zibolski said. “Why would somebody do this? What happened?” 

One witness, Chenoa Peterson, told the Associated Press that Barakat was in a bank parking lot near the crash when he fired on officers from close range. 

"He was holding up the trunk of the car with his arm, and then I see the gun come up, and he set it on his shoulder and just pointed it directly at an officer in front of him,” she said. "It was like 10 shots right away.”

Peterson's daughter Katriel said, "I saw them firing at each other both at once.” She continued, "But soon as the shooter took a break the cop came walking towards him letting off round after round. There was already an officer down. And a family hiding just on the other side of the vehicle next to the shooter.”

Zibolski identified 23-year-old Officer Jake Wallin as the officer killed in the incident. He was on the force for three months before the incident and was a combat veteran who previously deployed to Afghanistan as part of the Minnesota Army National Guard. 

Zibloski said, "He served his country, came back here, and wanted nothing more but to serve in a position with purpose and meaning – his exact words — and he did that."

At the press conference, a video was shown of Wallin as a recruit explaining why he wanted to be a police officer. "Throughout my entire life, I’ve always wanted to work in some sort of position that had purpose behind my job and police officer is always what kind of came to me,” He said.

“I don’t want to be sitting in an office wondering why I’m here every day. I want to be out, I want to be doing something that I can tell myself at the end of the day I made a difference somehow,” Wallin concluded. 

Officers Andrew Dotas and Tyler Hawes were named as the cops wounded in the incident and Officer Zach Robinson is credited with neutralizing Barakat. 

Zibolski said he believes investigators will determine the motivation.