Store clerk insists ‘no way’ man shot by police in Franklin County had wielded knife (2024)

SULLIVAN, Mo. — Business was slow at the liquor store Saturday night, so clerk Christopher Wilson stepped outside for a break on the parking lot that faces Interstate 44. He couldn’t believe what he saw next: a deadly confrontation between police officers and a man standing on the shoulder.

“None of it seemed real,” Wilson said. “This is a small country town.”

Sullivan police and a Franklin County deputy had been summoned for an irate man walking in and along I-44 near Sullivan. Within minutes, the man was shot dead by police. Authorities said he “started coming” at the officers with a knife.

Wilson insists that the account is not true.

“It was directly in front of me,” Wilson told the Post-Dispatch. “There is no way this gentleman was armed when he was shot.”

Sullivan police and the Franklin County sheriff have declined to release the name of the dead man, but his family has identified him as Garrett Michael Ryan, a 30-year-old machinist who lived with his mother in Sullivan.

Ryan’s mother, Alana Ryan, said she is skeptical of the police account and hopes a thorough investigation uncovers what really happened.

Her son had troubles in the past, including time in jail and issues with substance abuse. He had been depressed and agitated, she said. And he indeed owned pocket knives. He worked at his local pastor’s machine shop.

“He was so sweet and kind, and he was so nonconfrontational,” she said. “He was the middle child and just wanted everyone to be OK.”

Her son had just visited a cousin that day, and Alana Ryan can’t figure out why he would have been walking along the interstate because he owned a car. Through tears Tuesday, she said she had so many questions.

Alana Ryan said she understands police have to protect themselves. And if her son truly lunged at them with a knife, she said she would understand them taking action. But she wondered why they couldn’t first use a Taser or something else nonlethal.

“I want the truth,” she said. “I want to see that he had a knife.”

Police closed the interstate for hours there to investigate the shooting. Traffic backed up, and a westbound tractor- trailer rear-ended one car, leading to a chain-reaction crash involving five vehicles.

Three people died in the crash, including 5-year-old Emmett Jones and his mom, Chelsea Smith, 32, of Steelville, Missouri. The boy’s obituary said, “Emmett was made out of love and Legos.”

The third motorist to die was Bailey Snider, 25, of Rolla.

A man in ‘distress’

It all began about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, when a Sullivan officer told dispatchers he saw a man walking east along the shoulder on the westbound side of I-44.

“He appears fine to me,” the officer said, according to a recording of the dispatch call. The officer said he would head back that way and try talking to him “to make sure he is OK.”

About a minute later, the officer reported back to the dispatcher that the man “is in some type of distress (and was) not willing to come talk with me. He’s telling me to F off.”

“He seems mad about something” the officer continued. He said the man kept walking away, moving from the shoulder to the median, crossing the road when cars weren’t around.

Local police checked with neighboring Crawford County to see if police there had been searching for a man fitting that description, but they hadn’t.

Over the next 10 minutes or so, the officer watched to see if the man would walk off the highway. The officer told a colleague he was worried the man would run into traffic if an officer tried to confront him again. Shortly after that, according to the dispatch call, the officer said, “He has a big knife, guys. He’s armed. Shut the lane down.”

Police shut down traffic so the man wouldn’t get run over. Police “pleaded with him to stop and drop the knife,” but he refused and continued toward police in an “aggressive” manner, according to a joint statement from Franklin County Sheriff Steve Pelton and Sullivan police Chief Patrick Johnson.

Police said the Sullivan officer and a sheriff’s deputy both shot the man, who was pronounced dead at a hospital. Authorities haven’t said how many shots in all were fired or described what kind of knife they said he wielded. No officers were hurt.

Before he was shot, Ryan had been exaggeratedly talking with his hands, said Wilson, the witness.

“Maybe talking with his hands could’ve been interpreted as aggressive, but we all do that and we don’t get shot,” Wilson said.

“He was clearly agitated. He was plucking at his shirt like, ‘It’s hot,’” Wilson said. “I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his body language screamed, ‘I just want to be left alone.’”

Investigation could take weeksRyan paced a bit, going one step forward and two steps back, but never got closer to the officers than about 15 feet, Wilson said.

Wilson said, “I could clearly see his hands. And it was only seconds from the time there was four officers being present until that gentleman was on the ground.”

Wilson, a 42-year-old from Sullivan, served a stint in the Army. He knows the sound of gunfire. He said he distinctly heard six shots and saw smoke coming from the barrels of four officers’ guns. And through it all, Wilson insists, he never saw a knife.

“He was unarmed, as far as I can see,” Wilson said. “If he had anything, it was in his pocket because I saw his hands and he did not have a knife.”

Franklin County and Sullivan police have refused to answer questions about the shooting, referring inquiries to the Highway Patrol. The patrol won’t say anything until its investigation is finished.

“They need to be held accountable, period. Why lie about it?” Wilson said. “This isn’t St. Louis. This isn’t something we’re accustomed to seeing.”

Local police said they turned everything over to the Missouri Highway Patrol’s Division of Drug and Crime Control to investigate the shooting death. Pelton said it’s protocol for an outside agency to investigate when an officer shoots someone.

Lt. Eric Brown, with the Missouri Highway Patrol’s headquarters in Jefferson City, said Tuesday that the probe promises to be comprehensive. They will examine any available footage from police dashboard cameras or body-worn cameras, as well as any video from nearby businesses or witnesses. Brown said he can’t put a timeline on when the patrol’s investigation will wrap up.

“A few weeks, at least,” Brown said.

Once the investigation is finished, the patrol will turn its findings over to the Franklin County prosecutor’s office for review.