NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. (LEX 18) — A year after police shot and killed 22-year-old Desman LaDuke in Nicholasville, the release of the Kentucky State Police investigative file into what happened has provided a more detailed look into what led up to the fatal shot being fired.
The file includes hours of police body camera footage, multiple audio-recorded interviews of witnesses, and other documents.
911 call
At 10:40 a.m. on Oct. 22, 2022, Desman LaDuke's aunt called 9-1-1 to report that LaDuke was suicidal.
LaDuke's girlfriend had reached out to his aunt, who raised him after he started making suicidal statements and had a gun.
LaDuke's girlfriend said afterward that she'd been able to get the gun away from LaDuke and hid it, but LaDuke got a knife and eventually got the gun again.
LaDuke's aunt said that he had been having mental health issues in the month leading up to the shooting, including thoughts that someone was following him.
She said in an interview with a Kentucky State Police detective after the shooting that she'd been nervous he might be showing early signs of schizophrenia. She'd even set him up with an appointment with a therapist, but he hadn't gone.
When she called 911, she told the dispatcher that LaDuke had a gun in the house.
Police arrive and talk with LaDuke
The body camera footage provided to LEX 18 does not include the moments when the first responding officer knocked on LaDuke's door.
But once the body camera footage starts, officers can be heard saying that LaDuke had allowed his girlfriend to leave the house.
Not long after the footage starts, an officer can be seen talking with LaDuke through the door. LaDuke can be heard asking the officers to leave and asking why so many police were at the house.
An officer then asks LaDuke to toss his girlfriend's phone out the door. He agrees and can be seen tossing it onto the grass in the footage.
Officers wait
For a while, the uniformed officers on the scene wait. A few can be heard on body camera footage commenting that LaDuke was not being hostile or threatening to anyone but himself.
One officer can be heard saying, "I just can't imagine why we'd get our ARs."
According to body camera footage and documents provided to LEX 18, the Special Response Team, or SRT, arrived and got in place around 11:30 a.m.
SRT Commander Jason Fraddosio later told a KSP detective that when his team arrived, he moved them in and moved patrol officers out to control traffic.
While SRT officers were in place, the police department's crisis negotiator was helping LaDuke's aunt try to calm him down over the phone.
The police crisis negotiator said in his interview with the Kentucky State Police detective afterward that LaDuke's aunt was doing a good job of trying to talk LaDuke down and that it was clear the two had a close relationship.
"It seemed that he really wanted to come out and see his aunt," the crisis negotiator said in the police interview. "So I was encouraged and I felt definitely time's on our side."
The situation escalates
But then, around 1:15 p.m., things escalated.
Visual footage of what happened next isn't available because the department's SRT officers weren't wearing body cameras. But one of them did have a camera in his pocket, so audio of what was happening was picked up.
Earlier in the response, the officer who'd had the camera in his pocket can be seen lifting it to chest level, perhaps trying to find a way to attach it to his tactical uniform, before putting it back in his pocket.
After things escalated at around 1:15 p.m., police can be heard on the body camera saying that LaDuke was standing in his back bedroom window with a gun and that he was tapping the gun against the window. The camera audio picks up the sound of something repeatedly hitting the glass.
Multiple officers can be heard telling LaDuke to drop the gun, and one officer repeatedly says his name. In an interview with a KSP detective afterward, he said that LaDuke had pointed to him and asked his name.
The commands and requests from officers for LaDuke to drop the gun and come outside continued on and off for the next few minutes.
Shot fired
At around 1:20 p.m., Officer Joseph Horton fired a single shot, striking LaDuke in the chest, according to records.
In interviews with KSP detectives after the shooting, both Horton and the SRT commander on the scene that day, Jason Fraddosio, said that LaDuke was repeatedly pointing the gun at his head and then at officers.
"And as he came up the last time, he goes to his head, still every time getting 'em longer, stopped at his middle chest, torso, pointed out the window at me, coming up to his head," Fraddosio said. "The last time, I told him, I said, 'Horton, if he does that again, he's not giving us an option.'"
Fraddosio said that the last time LaDuke pointed the gun at him, he was squeezing the trigger of his rifle when Horton fired a shot.
"In that instance, I identified him as an imminent danger to my officers and myself, and as an immediate threat, I shot one round into the window to stop, to stop that threat," Horton said in his interview with the KSP investigator.
A police evidence photo in the investigative file shows a black handgun lying on a floor covered in broken glass.
A cell phone video from a neighbor who lived two houses from LaDuke's captured the moment the shot was fired.
Because of the angle of the cell phone video, only the officers are visible. The neighboring house blocks LaDuke's window where he was standing.
LaDuke's aunt told the KSP detective afterward that she thought LaDuke was calming down not long before hearing the gunshot.
"And I was like, 'What the f*** did you just shoot him for?'" she said in the audio-recorded interview. "Like we just went from negotiating two minutes ago."
Medical response
After Horton shot LaDuke and the officers saw LaDuke drop out of view, they went to the door of the apartment and broke through it.
In the audio picked up by the body camera in the officer's pocket, another officer can be heard saying, "Why did you do that? Why did you continually point guns at us? We did nothing but try to help you for hours; why did you force them to do that?"
On a nearby street, EMTs were staging throughout the incident. They heard the shot and immediately started driving to the scene. In interviews with Kentucky State Police afterward, they said that it took police about six minutes after the shot to secure the location and call them in.
The two EMTs caring for LaDuke in the back of the ambulance said that he was alert for the whole ride and thought they could save him.
"It's really emotional for me, I'm sorry," one of the EMTs said in her interview. "He was calm, very calm. And he was a kid."
The EMTs were on scene for about four minutes, and they got from the Nicholasville home to the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital in Lexington in about 15 minutes, the EMT who drove said.
"You did a good job," the KSP detective commented after hearing how quick the trip to the hospital was.
"We tried," the EMT replied.
LaDuke was rushed into surgery but was ultimately pronounced dead at 5:55 p.m. that day.
Aftermath
After the shooting, LaDuke's family and community members questioned the decision to respond to a mental health crisis with an SRT team with rifles.
A lawsuit filed in the case accused the SRT team of handling mental health crises like "a hostage rescue."
The lawsuit argues that the police response escalated the situation by placing SRT officers with rifles around the home and in view of LaDuke.
Due to the ongoing litigation, Nicholasville Police Chief Michael Fleming, who was not chief at the time of the shooting, said he couldn't say much about the case.
He did say that he has asked the city commission for funding to hire a police social worker to help at mental health crisis calls and for a victim's advocate.
