The suspect accused of plowing his SUV into crowds at a Christmas parade in Wisconsin was captured on a doorbell camera just minutes after the incident, begging the home’s resident to let him in while he waited for an Uber to pick him up.
Darrell Brooks, 39, arrived on the doorstep of Daniel Rider’s home approximately 20 minutes after he allegedly mowed down revellers at the Waukesha Christmas parade, killing five and injuring dozens more.
The suspect appears in just a T-shirt, shivering as he talks to the doorbell camera.
“I called an Uber and I’m supposed to be waiting for it over here, but I don’t know when it’s coming,” he is heard saying. “Can you call it for me please? I’m homeless,” he adds.
Rider told NBC News he had just returned from a hunting trip and had his TV turned on to a football game, so he was unaware of the parade incident at the time.
Feeling bad for Brooks, Rider invited him in, gave him a jacket and a sandwich, and let him use the phone. He began to have a bad feeling when he could hear police driving by, however, and asked Brooks to leave.
Moments after escorting Brooks out, he appears back on camera, pounding on the door claiming he’d left his ID inside.
“Then the next thing you know, you see the cops with lights on him saying, ‘hands in the air, hands in the air,'” Rider told NBC.
Part of the arrest is shown on camera, as several police officers take Brooks into custody.
Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson said Brooks drove his car into the crowd shortly after was leaving the scene of a domestic dispute.
Thompson said that there was no evidence the bloodshed Sunday was a terrorist attack or that Brooks knew anyone in the parade. Brooks acted alone, the chief said.
Brooks was freed on $1,000 bail posted just two days before the deadly event.
He has other pending cases against him, including an allegation that he deliberately hit a woman with his car earlier this month after a fight.
Brooks has been charged with crimes 16 times since 1999 and had two outstanding cases against him at the time of the parade disaster. That included resisting or obstructing an officer, reckless endangering, disorderly conduct, bail jumping and battery for the Nov. 2 incident.
Thompson said police were going to recommend Brooks face five charges of first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the latest incident, which is punishable by life in prison. Brooks is to appear in court Tuesday afternoon.
Police identified those killed as Virginia Sorenson, 79; LeAnna Owen, 71; Tamara Durand, 52; Jane Kulich, 52; and Wilhelm Hospel, 81. Sorenson, Owen and Durand were members the Dancing Grannies club, and Hospel helped out with the group.
At least nine patients, most of them children, were in critical condition Monday at two hospitals, and seven others were reported in serious condition.
— With files from The Associated Press