Video at hearing shows Wichita officer being hit, run over

The part of the video that shows a black SUV running over the police officer lasts only a few seconds.

One instant, Wichita police Officer Brian Arterburn – a wiry, 25-year veteran with the department – is moving quickly. On Feb. 7, a sunny afternoon, he’s darting into South Topeka Street in a densely populated residential neighborhood. He’s tossing down a tire-deflation device to stop a suspect’s vehicle. The stolen SUV suddenly bores into his path.

The next instant, the onrushing SUV hits Arterburn, and he momentarily disappears as it zooms off over him and leaves him sprawled on the pavement.

The video was shown during a preliminary hearing Thursday for Justin Terrazas, the 31-year-old charged with aggravated battery against a law enforcement officer and other crimes, including fleeing from police and having enough methamphetamine to be pegged as a drug dealer.

The prosecutors said their evidence showed Terrazas’ actions were done knowingly. His defense attorney argued that it happened so quickly, it couldn’t be intentional, it was an accident.

After listening to them, Sedgwick County District Court Judge Terry Pullman found that prosecutors presented enough evidence for the case to proceed to a trial, initially set for Aug. 7.

Before Arterburn was struck, another officer in a marked patrol unit was following closely behind the black SUV. That officer testified Thursday that he saw the vehicle’s suspension lift up and down and a rear tire go over Arterburn.

Arterburn’s partner testified that she fired a single shot at the fleeing driver right after her partner was hit. The driver ducked.

Her police body-camera recorded the moments, and the video was the key evidence that prosecutors showed Thursday. Some of Arterburn’s loved ones left the courtroom before the video was shown.

Another officer pursuing in a marked unit said that as he drove past Arterburn, he saw tire tracks on the officer, “and he appeared to be dead.” Arterburn survived. But he suffered profound injuries and remains under constant medical care and in physical rehabilitation, according to witnesses.

In a statement released Thursday night, Arterburn and his family refused to comment about the video or the hearing.

“The video speaks for itself,” said the statement released by family spokesman David Nienstedt.

After receiving treatment at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City for liver enzyme issues that concerned doctors because Arterburn had had a liver transplant two years ago, Arterburn is back at Craig Hospital in Colorado to continue his rehabilitation.

“Severe traumatic brain injuries are considered a marathon, not a sprint,” the family statement said. “Although Brian has made good progress in a short time, he still has a long uphill road to recovery.”

Thursday’s testimony was dramatic and traumatic. The officers who testified appeared to still be shaken by what they saw happen to their fellow officer five months ago. Their voices caught at times. But they never broke down during testimony.

Terrazas appeared to briefly bow his head after prosecutors showed the video. He was brought to the courtroom in shackles. His dark hair is cut short on the sides, and the skin on his right temple visibly pulsed at times. He has distinctive tattoos extending over his eyebrow and down his jaw line – tattoos the officers said they remembered seeing that day.

‘Careful!’

The video, about 40 seconds in its entirety, begins with Arterburn and his partner, Officer Janette Griggs, pulling up quickly in their marked patrol SUV. They’ve been in radio communication with other officers who have been doing surveillance on a house where the stolen black SUV had been parked. Officers in marked units follow the SUV as it leaves the house. For Arterburn and Griggs, the task is to get to a place ahead of the SUV to lay down a tire spike strip in time to stop the vehicle.

As they hurry out of their vehicle, Arterburn grabs the strip.

His partner yells after him: “Careful!”

The black SUV, going south on one-way Topeka, has pulled up behind a car that has halted in the middle of an intersection just north of Pawnee, apparently because an officer is heading into the street.

Officer Kevin McKenna, in a marked vehicle directly behind the SUV, testified that he hoped that he could block off the SUV right there. McKenna turned on his emergency lights and siren. But seconds later, the black SUV pulled around the small car that had stopped just as Arterburn ran into the street with the spike strip.

McKenna saw Arterburn “disappear.”

“I could tell that it had run over something,” McKenna testified about the SUV. At first, he thought it was the spike strip, that the truck lifted up over whatever it hit.

McKenna saw the rear tire go over Arterburn’s abdomen. Then he heard a single shot – Griggs firing at the fleeing SUV. The vehicle accelerated, roaring south at around 80 mph in a 30-mph zone, McKenna said.

A voice, apparently that of Griggs, can be heard screaming “Brian!”

Over 100 mph

As the chase continued, McKenna saw the SUV run a stop sign at Pawnee and vault into the air at some railroad tracks, coming down into oncoming traffic.

The speed exceeded 100 mph before the driver ran from the SUV and into a machine shop on Pawnee, where an employee helped subdue the suspect as a canine officer rushed in with his dog.

The officers testified that Terrazas was the driver they saw that day.

In a search of the black SUV that struck Arterburn, investigators found drug pipes, a digital scale and bags of methamphetamine and marijuana.

A Kansas Highway Patrol master trooper also testified that Terrazas was the driver he saw run from a vehicle and escape after a chase that ended in south Wichita six days before Arterburn was run over.

This story was originally published July 6, 2017 at 1:26 PM with the headline "Video at hearing shows Wichita officer being hit, run over."