The Thermopolis Police Department and Hot Springs County Sheriff’s Office released video Tuesday of a September officer- and deputy-involved shooting in which a local man who chased agents with a metal baseball bat was shot and killed.
Jared Gottula, 41, died outside his home Sept. 9, 2024, after he charged Thermopolis Police Department Officer Ryan Loving and Hot Springs County Sheriff’s Deputy Max Lee-Crain with a metal baseball bat, and they both shot him, according to official statements and the video.
Special prosecutor Fremont County Attorney Patrick LeBrun deemed the agents’ actions legally justified in a Feb. 7 decision letter based on his review of an investigation by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).
The day of Gottula’s death, a concerned neighbor had called police to his home in the area of Clark and Third streets for a welfare check, after she watched him thrash his home and the air with the baseball bat in an apparent mental health break.
Tuesday evening on their separate Facebook pages, the two agencies released a body, dash and home camera video compilation of stitched-together scenes in which the figures and faces of multiple bystanders and Gottula are blurred.
The compilation shows Gottula chasing a police vehicle with a bat, chasing an officer and deputy with a bat, and being shot. It also shows Gottula’s father approaching agents after the shooting, emotional and demanding to know why they shot him.
What It Shows
The first video of the compilation appears to be from a road-facing home security camera.
It shows frantic dogs in the homeowner’s front yard, and a shirtless man — blurred in the video — walking through his own front gate toward the scene, where Gottula was then charging toward Loving’s police vehicle with a baseball bat in hand.
“Jeremy stay out of it!” a woman yells, in the video. “Jeremy stay out of it! Calm down, you’re gonna get f***in’ shot!”
As the shirtless man paces out into the street, Gottula charges toward Loving’s vehicle while Loving drives in reverse; then toward it again while Loving drives forward and away.
Loving’s vehicle leaves the video frame, then circles back into it and strikes Gottula with the front left-side headlight region of the vehicle, knocking Gottula’s body sideways and airborne.
Loving would later tell Gottula’s father that he was trying to knock Gottula’s metal bat out of his hand, as the man had been hitting the vehicle with the bat.
A witness who watched the incident told Cowboy State Daily at the time that Gottula had hit the vehicle with the bat and had tried multiple times to tug the officer’s car door open.
One of the dogs in the front yard of the homeowner with the security video, a brown and white dog, follows the shirtless man through the gate and out into the street. But when Loving’s vehicle strikes Gottula, the dog flees back into the yard.
“Oh, shit!” yells the woman immediately after the collision.
“Calm down, dude!” yells a man.
Cut To Next
The home video cuts to another scene by the same camera. It shows the police vehicle charging toward the railroad embankment abutting the neighborhood, as Lee-Crain runs toward the embankment on foot.
The police vehicle knocks over a standing, dark-clad figure, presumably Gottula, who lands on the embankment then jumps to his feet and sprints after the police vehicle as it retreats in reverse.
Gottula runs onto the railroad tracks.
Here, Lee-Crain’s body camera video supplies some of what the home video does not show.
It shows Lee-Crain walking toward Gottula as the man retreats up the embankment and demands to know why officers are there.
Lee-Crain tells Gottula he’s a danger to everybody because he’s “swinging a damn bat around.”
Gottula approaches the passenger side of Loving’s police vehicle and leans against the door and window, with his bat anchored on his right shoulder.
Loving tries without success to tase Gottula, who was indicating that he could get a gun if he wanted to.
Gottula shouts something indiscernible then strides toward Lee-Crain with his bat over his shoulder.
Lee-Crain, whose gun is raised, starts firing several shots. The multiple videos render at least 20 gunshot sounds.
Once Gottula is down he keeps the pistol trained toward him and reloads.
“Kick that bat away,” says Lee-Crain.
The home video at this point shows multiple bystanders congregating in the road.
Same Scene, But From The Officer’s Body Camera
Loving’s body camera video opens with him driving, bumping into Gottula then putting the car in reverse and getting out.
The audio flicks on. He tells dispatch that the suspect struck his vehicle with a baseball bat, “and I bumped him with my vehicle.”
In the distance, Lee-Crain shouts “drop the bat” repeatedly.
Loving calls out “drop the bat” as well.
Loving tries without success to subdue Gottula with a taser.
“Woah, look at that,” says Gottula.
Multiple gunshots sound, presumably from Lee-Crain. Gottula begins falling. Loving’s hands appear in front of his camera, gripping a pistol, and he starts shooting as well.
Loving radios out the “shots fired” call to dispatch.
‘You Killed Him?!’
“You killed him?!” yells a man later identified as Gottula’s father, who had been at the man’s home with him during the earlier, reported mental health incident.
“Why’d you have to shoot somebody?” yells the father. “He didn’t even have a gun.”
The father demands to know if Gottula is dead. Then he shouts, “No ambulance?!”
“They’re on their way,” answers Loving, who had called for an ambulance about two seconds before the father asked that question.
The video shows the officer and deputy handcuffing Gottula’s hands behind his back as his body lay limp on the ground. Lee-Crain contemplates double-locking the handcuffs and Loving says that’s not necessary.
‘Nothing Was Working’
Gottula’s dad asks again if Gottula is dead.
“We don’t know yet,” says Loving. “We tried to stop him — I tried to handle it as peacefully as possible.”
Lee-Crain speaks to the father, saying, “He came at me with a bat, man, that’s why I shot him.”
Loving explains to the father his many attempts to stop Gottula’s attacks, including the vehicle strikes and the two taser blasts.
“Nothing was working,” says Lee-Crain, in the video.
Lee-Crain’s dash camera recorded the scene from a distance. It shows some of Loving’s tactical driving, Lee-Crain’s approach on foot and bystanders congregating.
The dispatch radio plays throughout the dash camera video, capturing a concurrent crisis: wildfires were raging throughout Wyoming at that time, and authorities were called to fight one in Hot Springs County that day.
At Work
LeBrun has reviewed five officer-involved shootings during his career as Fremont County Attorney. He has a longstanding policy of not publicly identifying agents found justified in critical incidents.
But the Thermopolis Police Department and the Hot Springs County Sheriff’s Office issued a joint statement Feb. 8, identifying both Loving and Lee-Crain publicly.
Loving has returned to full duty, TPD announced.
Hot Springs County Sheriff Jerimie Kraushaar did not immediately respond to an email inquiry about Lee-Crain’s duty status.
In his decision letter, LeBrun said the deputy and officer were focused on stopping Gottula’s behavior “in the least violent manner possible.”
“They were required to do so with not only their safety in mind but the safety of several citizen bystanders that had gathered in the immediate vicinity,” he wrote.
Gottula showed focus and determination to hurt the officer and deputy and never once indicated he intended to surrender despite “ample opportunity,” says the letter.
“He simply would not stop the violence,” wrote LeBrun.
Gottula was suffering from an unspecified mental illness, the letter says.
Father Of Three
Gottula lived in Laramie prior to Thermopolis at least as late as 2021, his court file indicates. It’s a thin court file, showing three state criminal citations: one for speeding in 2002, one for running a stop sign in 2007, and one for failing to wear fluorescent clothing while hunting in 2021.
One civil filing says Gottula is a father of three.
The file describes him as standing 6 feet, 2 inches tall, with brown hair and blue eyes.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
