Boise mall shooter fired about 16 bullets at officers, police accountability report says
The Boise Towne Square mall shooter fired roughly 16 bullets at officers, according to a newly released report by the city’s Office of Police Accountability.
A five-page report released by the office Wednesday morning provides a few additional details into the 2021 shooting that left three people dead, including the shooter, and several more injured. On Oct. 25, 2021, Jacob Bergquist entered Boise Towne Square and killed 26-year-old security guard, military veteran and Caldwell resident Jo Acker and 49-year-old Rupert resident Roberto Padilla Arguelles.
The Boise Office of Police Accountability exonerated Boise Police Officer Chris Dance, who fired a single shot at Bergquist and attempted to use his patrol vehicle to strike Bergquist. Dance was previously cleared by Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs in October 2022.
At 1:53 p.m., Dance and Boise Police Officer Jason Shofner arrived at the mall and saw Bergquist walking north near Dave and Buster’s, according to the report. Shofner exited the vehicle’s passenger side and moved to the rear of the car so he could chamber a round into his rifle. Bergquist began firing at the officers.
Dance drew his firearm from the driver’s seat of his vehicle and then “felt a concussive blast from the windshield,” the report says. This is when Dance was struck in the eyelid by a bullet fragment after one of the shots fired by Bergquist hit the lower portion of the patrol car’s windshield. Body camera footage released in October also showed that the driver’s side window of the patrol car was shattered.
Dance then fired one shot at Bergquist, before his ammunition magazine was dislodged, the report says. Bergquist fired roughly 16 shots at the officers, the report said. As Bergquist began to run away, Dance accelerated the patrol vehicle to try to hit Bergquist.
Bergquist ran behind a dumpster and avoided getting hit, the report says. He shot himself in the head and later died at the hospital. By 1:56 p.m., other officers had arrived at the scene and observed Bergquist slumped against the dumpster. The Ada County Coroner ruled Bergquist died by suicide.
The Office of Police Accountability report also clarifies that the bullet fragment that injured a mall customer in her car came from Bergquist’s gun. The woman survived. She was driving on Milwaukee Street when the fragment hit her in the face, according to a police report.
Office issues violations for body cameras
In the same report, OPA Director Jesus Jara issued a violation against Dance and another unidentified officer for body camera issues. Dance was wearing a body camera but failed to activate it before he arrived at the scene, the report said. The video footage that was released in October showed that Dance’s body camera was turned on after he fired a shot.
Dance was issued a “sustained” violation for failing to activate his camera. Another officer, who has not been identified by police, was issued a sustained violation for failing to wear a camera.
The unidentified male officer was working on another case when he was called to the mall, but “they had forgotten to check out a camera as they usually do,” according to the report. Jara in the report said that the officer was aware he didn’t have a camera once he was responding to the mall but didn’t stop to get one “in order to expedite his arrival at the active shooter call.”
After Bergquist shot himself, the unidentified officer in an attempt to preserve evidence removed Dance’s body camera and attached it to his uniform, as Dance was injured. In the report, Jara praised the officer’s actions in using Dance’s body camera to “memorialize actions taken during this critical time.”
The Idaho Statesman has reached out to Boise police spokesperson Haley Williams for more information on the violations.
