A Florida police sniper saved the lives of two people held hostage by a bank robber by shooting the perpetrator through a computer screen.
New footage from the bank robbery that occurred earlier this year surfaced online and showed the intense standoff between police and the man holding two hostages. Officers from the Lee County Sheriff's Department descended upon a Bank of America in Fort Myers, Florida, in full armor and met with the 36-year-old bank robber inside the building.
A negotiator can be heard talking to the man who, at one point, used the two hostages as shields while the sniper was getting into position right outside the room. "Keep talking to me, keep talking to me, I want to know what's going through your head right now," the negotiator said.
The negotiation attempts weren't enough to have the man stand down, and he proceeded to put one of the hostages in a headlock while holding a knife at their neck. The sniper reacted quickly and took a seemingly impossible shot where the bullet went through a desktop screen, in between the two hostages, and into the bank robber's forehead. The suspect fell to the ground while the hostages ran for cover, and the police team threw flash-bang grenades before entering the room.
"Shooting positions like these are trained regularly by snipers for time-critical incidents like these," said Lt. Todd Olmer of the Lee County Sheriff's Office in a statement. "Due to the suspect's limited exposure, the sniper took a planned and deliberate shot through a computer monitor, striking the suspect in the center of the forehead, killing him instantly."
He added, "Firing through barriers is a trained and routinely practiced skill by the Lee County Sheriff's Office special operations unit snipers. The .308-caliber bullet used is specifically selected due to its known ballistic reliability traveling through intermediate barriers."
