Texas deputy's unbelievable reaction to shooting dead unarmed man during traffic stop

Daily Mail​

29-04-2025

A Texas police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man who ran a red light had a despicable reaction to taking his life.
Sergeant Shane Iversen, 57, of the Rusk County Sheriff's Office gunned down Timothy Michael Randall, 29, after pulling him over on September 14, 2022.
After realizing Randall was dead, the since-retired cop made an unsettling call to a colleague.
'I just smoked a dude,' he said in an eerily calm tone, as caught on dash cam video.
Randall was on the phone with his mother, Wendy Tippitt, when Iversen pulled him over just after 12:30am in Henderson.
She never expected the cut-short call to be the last time she would ever speak with her son.
Parked on the side of the road, Iversen approached his red Nissan Altima and asked Randall to step out of the car, as seen on dash cam footage that shows the moments leading up to and following Randall's death.
Randall placed his wallet in his back pocket and adjusted his waistband as he stood up.
The since-retired officer moved Randall's arms on top of the vehicle and started patting him down - digging his hands into his pants - before the situation escalated.
'I don't have anything on me, officer,' Randall said in a panic.
'Put your hands behind your back,' Iversen responded as Randall asked why he was being arrested.
Iversen was seen body slamming Randall to the ground and wrestling with him - with both of them toppling over each other.
When Iversen let go of Randall, who then stood up to run, the officer whipped out his gun and fired with no hesitation.
After bullets rang through the quiet neighborhood, Randall sprinted off before dropping dead face-down the road.
Iversen walked up to Randall's body and said 'dude, are you okay?' realizing in that moment that he was not.
The officer called for an ambulance before rushing back to his cop car and driving to Randall's body.
When emergency services arrived, Iversen made the disturbing call to notify his colleague he had 'smoked' Randall.
Iversen was never criminally charged for the shooting, and he quietly retired shortly afterwards, NBC reported.
An autopsy revealed the single bullet ravaged Randall's insides - ripping through his ribs, heart and lungs.
His heartbroken mother had spent weeks after the fatal incident demanding answers, or simply any information to help her make sense of what happened to her child.
'No one was telling us anything,' Tippitt recalled to NBC.
She remained in the dark until she filed a federal lawsuit in 2023 - leading to the release of the jaw-dropping dash cam footage last summer, which Iversen battled to keep concealed.
Tippitt has claimed her son's constitutional rights were violated when he was killed.
'The only person that was attacking anybody was Sergeant Iversen attacking my son,' Tippitt said.
The video also did not go over well with the Rusk County community, who has rallied and protested on Randall's behalf since its release.
'Well, I think the video shows clearly one of the worst acts of police misconduct in US history. And that conduct was murder,' Joseph Oxman, an attorney representing the Randall family, told CBS 19.
'Everything that he did was aggressive action against my client. He's the one who grabbed him. Iverson's the one who threw him down.
'Everything that Iverson did was to escalate the situation.'
When Iversen tried to get the lawsuit tossed, a judge refused, writing 'a reasonable juror could conclude that Defendant Iversen's actions were objectively unreasonable.'
The Rusk County Sheriff's Office said in a press release Randall had an open can of beer in the car.
Iversen's lawyer Robert Davis said Randall had a meth pipe in his pants. He claimed Iversen believed it was a handgun.
A post-mortem toxicology exam revealed Randall had meth, marijuana and alcohol in his system. His blood alcohol content was 0.017, which is below the legal limit.
Meth was found in his wallet as well, NBC reported.
'This officer is a retired Army veteran, 27 years special forces, and is now retired from law enforcement. So not somebody who takes life and death situations lightly,' Davis said.
'Sgt. Iversen believed if Randall reached him, Sgt. Iversen would be in a fight for his life, with either Randall's weapon used to injure or kill him, or Randall taking away his own weapons and using them against him,' Davis and fellow attorney Lee Correa wrote to NBC.
DailyMail.com reached out to Davis for comment.
A district judge is set to decide in the coming days if the court will be moving forward with the lawsuit against Iversen.
Randall's loved ones created a GoFundMe page after he passed away, which raised more than $3,300 for funeral arrangements.
'Mike as we all knew him was a great man all around. He was funny, he was the light of the show and he lit up a room with his smile,' the page reads.
'Mike was a father, a son, an uncle a brother, and an outstanding guy that many of us could count on.'