OCONEE COUNTY, Ga. — The Oconee County Sheriff's Office has released bodycam video associated with the deadly officer-involved shooting of a woman Monday morning.
She was identified as 40-year-old Julia Anne Moss of Athens, according to the sheriff's office.
The incident occurred at a residence off of Creek View Court off of White Oak Drive a little before 10:30 a.m. Deputies were called to the residence in response to a domestic incident.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who is also participating in the investigation, deputies met with the man who called authorities. He told them that the woman had hit him on the head and was being aggressive.
When the deputies entered, they found Moss allegedly holding a lit blow torch and a knife. They said she was a guest at the residence where the incident occurred, having spent the previous night there.
A male resident had call 911 after Moss stabbed a dog and struck the male resident in the head with a pipe, they said. He had a visible injury to the head.
The sheriff's office said another person had barricaded himself into a bedroom in order to avoid Moss.
Deputies had attempted to de-escalate the situation for about 17 minutes prior to the shooting, they said. The GBI collected all of the evidence from the scene, including all of the video, they said.
In the 47-second segment of bodycam video that was released, Moss can be seen throwing items at the deputy in a bedroom, all the while yelling.
In the early portion of the video, the yelling from Moss appeared to sound almost incoherent. One of the deputies could be heard repeatedly telling her, "Drop the knife!"
From the view of the deputy's bodycam, he is leaning on a doorframe, with his weapon pointed toward Moss. As items are thrown toward him, he ducks back so they don't strike him.
At about 15 seconds in, she can be heard, plainly yelling, "What the **** is going on?"
"Drop the knife," the deputy replies. "I'm trying to help you."
Moss yells again. "Everybody!"
"Drop the knife," the deputy said, once again.
"I don't need everybody to help me, (unintelligible)," she yelled.
"Drop it!" the deputy commanded Moss.
"Who is Elohim?" Moss yelled. The word "elohim" is a Hebrew word which translates both as the word "god," and as the proper name of "God," in the Old Testament in the Bible.
"Elohim! Allah!" Moss continued yelling, in what deputies later described as part of an "apparent manic state" that they said she was in. Other yelling continued, much of it not intelligible.
The deputies conferred between themselves.
"If I go low, can you go high?" one of them asked. It was not clear which one asked the question.
"Yeah," the other replied.
"OK," the first one said in response.
More items appeared to be tossed about by Moss. Then, as the deputy wearing the camera apparently began to crouch down, Moss could be seen advancing toward the deputies.
The gunshots and sound of the Taser could be heard going off simultaneously as the deputies step backward from the advancing Moss.
According to the sheriff's office, deputies had called for medical assistance almost immediately after making contact with Moss. Medical personnel could not enter until the scene had been secured, they said.
The sheriff's office identified the deputies involved in the incident as Cpl. Henderson and Deputy Swisher.
According to the sheriff's office, Swisher was covering Moss with a Taser, and he fired the Taser as she charged the deputies.
They said that Henderson fired the shots.
According to the sheriff's office, Henderson has been with the Oconee County Sheriff's Office for 6 years. He has extensive training in use of force and de-escalation. He is also a firearms instructor.
They said that deputies attempted CPR on Moss, to no avail.
The third deputy who arrived at the scene about a minute after the shots were fired is also an Emergency Medical Responder with Oconee County, the sheriff's office said. An additional responding deputy is a trained EMT, they said. He also provided care, as did other deputies and a Georgia State Patrol trooper.
The male resident was treated at the scene, they said. The dog was treated by EMTs on the scene and at a local veterinary hospital and has been reunited with its owner.
The GBI says that during 2019, they investigated 85 officer-involved shootings. Over the course of those cases, 37 people died -- three of them law enforcement officers.
So far in 2020, the GBI has been called to investigate 74 cases. Thirty-four people have died in those cases, along with one K-9 officer, not included in those statistics.