The Casper Police Department on Friday released body camera video and 911 audio from an April 28 officer-involved shooting in which a woman was shot while officers responded to a report of a burglary on South McKinley Street.
Clad in all black and a ball cap, the woman opened the front door of the home herself, raised a pistol at police and shouted, “Where the f*** are my children!” before being shot to death near the threshold, the video shows.
Also during this incident, a barking dog emerged from the home and leapt at an officer.
Jody Renee Cobia, 37, died on scene just after midnight. Officers failed to detect a pulse, but patched a chest entry and back exit wound and performed CPR anyway, the video shows.
Two officers fired a total of five shots. No officers, nor the dog, were harmed, according to the department.
Viewer Discretion
The YouTube video CPD released Friday opens with a text introduction saying the officer-involved shooting started with a 911 call placed at 12:01 a.m. April 28.
The audio of the call follows.
“911 what’s your emergency?” asks the dispatcher, in the call.
“Yes, please come quick, there’s a burglar breaking into the house,” says a woman, who gives her address on South McKinley Street. “He’s armed and dangerous.”
In a brief back-and-forth during which the woman speaks calmly, she tells the operator that she doesn’t know who the “burglar” was, but that he had broken in through a window and was in the back room, where she also was.
The woman tells the dispatcher to “hurry up,” and the dispatcher assures the woman that personnel were already on their way, and that the dispatcher gathering more information wasn’t slowing anything down.
“He’s inside. Please get inside. Please get over here,” the woman says on the call. “I’m running away from him.”
They Arrive
Three minutes later, multiple officers arrived at the home. Body camera video shows their flashlights illuminating a yard, home, sidewalk and front door. A porch light casts a dim yellow glow from the front door.
A female officer and male officer discuss their approach.
A dog barks, and the front door swings open. A woman pushes it all the way open with one arm, while emerging in all-black clothes and a ball cap.
“Where the f*** are my children?!” screams the woman in the video. She raises what looks like a pistol, while the dog barks and leaps at “Officer 1,” as his body camera video labels him.
“Whoa, whoa!” yells the male officer.
Five shots sound.
The body camera depicts a wooden-slat front-door walkway and the very bottom of the open doorway.
“Shots fired!” yells the officer, repeatedly. He’s breathing heavily.
Officer 2
The video cuts to the body camera of “Officer 2.”
This video shows Officer 1 leaping back and ducking, while shooting into the open doorway.
The video narrative says Officer 1 and Officer 2 were the ones who fired their weapons.
The first shot was fired 11 seconds after 12:06 a.m., and the last shot was fired 13 seconds after 12:06 a.m., the narrative says.
The officer called “shots fired!” onto the radio two seconds after the last shot, it adds.
A third video attributed to the body camera of the “supervising officer” shows him raising his pistol, then calling for everyone to “hold” rather than enter, which a later narrative cast over the video attributes to caution over the earlier burglary call.
“Casper Police Department!” calls the supervisor. “Anybody else in here?”
“She still has a gun,” says one officer. “Gun might be at her foot.”
The supervisor calls for a “shield at the front door.”
Emergency medical services were called to stand by at 12:10 a.m. One minute later, officers started clearing the home, looking for any people or animals.
There She Lay
The video cuts to footage from Officer 1’s camera. It shows a shelf loaded with canned goods, a room-to-room doorway into another cluttered room.
“Clear,” says the officer, who is still breathing heavily.
At 12:31 plus 51 seconds, the supervising officer confirmed there were no other people or animals there, and medical personnel were cleared to enter the scene, the narrative says.
Officers started lifesaving measures as soon as the home was deemed clear, the narrative adds.
A body camera video labelled as belonging to “Officer 4” depicts a male officer donning black gloves, saying, “I don’t think we have a pulse.”
He leans over a dark-haired woman lying on her back on the floor, a black ball cap lying next to the back of her head, her face tilted to her right and both arms bent at her sides. Her left arm is spattered with blood.
Some of what appears to be blood shows on her neck, but a blur square surfaces on the video to block her neck area.
The officer calls for a chest seal, for one gunshot wound to her chest.
“I don’t think she’s breathing, but … we’ll plug it first,” says the officer, apparently in anticipation of chest compressions.
He rolls the woman to her left, finds an exit wound in her back and calls for a seal for that too.
The male officer and a female discuss that neither of them could find a pulse.
“I’ll start her,” says the officer, who then gives the woman chest compressions.
“Everyone’s up, right?” asks an officer.
“All of us are good. No police hit,” answers another.
The officer stands and informs others that the woman has one gunshot wound to her chest, and an exit wound in her back, and both are sealed.
A female paramedic answers, “OK.”
More Narrative
During the 911 call, the narrative notes, the female caller said a burglar was wearing all black.
The person who opened the door was wearing all black and had a patch on her shirt that said “police,” the typed video narrative adds.
It cuts to a close shot still of the woman’s “police” patch, as she pulled the door open. The video then cuts to what its narrative calls a Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation photo of the weapon she held. The photo shows a Springfield Armory subcompact semiautomatic pistol next to a loaded magazine.
Two officers shot a total of five rounds, the narrative adds.
CPD called DCI to investigate, says the narrative, and the officers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave in keeping with department policies.
The investigation is ongoing, says the narrative.
The dog was unharmed and has been rehomed, it adds.
“Incidents such as this are tragic for our whole community,” says the narrative, “including the friends and family of the deceased.”
Obituary, Court Records
An obituary posted on the Casper Newcomer Funeral Homes website described Cobia as a person with a “vibrant spirit and unwavering dedication to her family.”
The obituary lists four children and her husband, Aren, as survivors, and well as a father and brother.
Court records show that Jody Cobia and her husband had been estranged, and that Aren Cobia had filed for divorce April 14, asking for custody of three minor children.
Jody Cobia also had a protection order in place against her husband that was filed Aug. 5, 2024, and effective through Aug. 5, 2025.
Jody Cobia was a native of Phoenix, Arizona, and graduated from high school there.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
