'My husband was shot!': 911 transcript details moments after St. Paul good Samaritan shooting
Javier Sanmiguel Yanez and family. Yanez had responded to a car crash outside his home in St. Paul. Witnesses say he approached a driver to help and was shot to death.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A newly-released 911 call transcript depicts the moment a woman found out her husband was shot while trying to help drivers who were involved in a multi-vehicle crash in St. Paul Monday night.
According St. Paul Police, Javier Sanmiguel Yanez, 31, of St. Paul, was pronounced dead at the scene after being shot by Lionel Keejuan Eaton, 27.
Witnesses at the scene told police a man was driving southbound on Edgerton Street in St. Paul when he rear-ended another vehicle. The collision caused the vehicle to cross into the northbound lane and crash into an unoccupied parked vehicle. Meanwhile, the suspect's vehicle continued southbound and struck an unoccupied parked car on the northwest corner of Edgerton and Case.
Yanez arrived at the scene and attempted to help the suspect and the driver who had been rear-ended. It was then that Eaton began to shoot from inside his vehicle and struck Yanez in the head.
911 CALL
In the 911 transcript, Yanez’s wife starts to tell dispatch about the accident and subsequent shooting.
“There was a bad accident, but someone just shot…there was a shot fired. Who…it might have been my husband they shot,” she says to dispatch.
She asks someone off the phone who was shot in the incident and a male voice responds, “Javier.”
The Sanmiguel family lost husband and father Javier Sanmiguel Yanez Monday night. (The Sanmiguel family. / FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul)
The woman exclaims, “No!” and the man warns her to stay out of the situation, saying, “Don’t! Don’t go in there!” as the dispatcher tried to get her attention.
“You cannot go out there. He aimed at us with the gun,” the unidentified male voice said.
Yanez’s wife is heard crying on the phone call before saying, “Oh my god! Javi! Javi! Javi!.” The transcript shows she kept saying, “Javi!” over and over throughout the call.
At least nine more shots were fired while dispatchers were on the phone with Yanez’s wife.
The unidentified man says, “He’s reloading. He’s reloading.”
Yanez’s wife asks, “What would make him shoot at him?”
The woman then gets back on the phone with dispatch and said, “My husband was shot! Please, get over here please! My husband was shot! Please, please, please! [Crying, screaming] Please!”
Yanez, a husband and father of four young children, was struck and killed right outside his home on Edgerton Street North. A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $40,000 by Wednesday.
The Sanmiguel family released the following statement Wednesday afternoon:
The Sanmiguel family would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support during this difficult time. They will greatly miss Javier, a man of deep commitment to his Catholic faith and his family. Helping others came naturally, so it comes as no surprise to those who knew him that Javier died like he lived, selflessly serving others. Thank you for respecting the family’s privacy as they move forward without their beloved son, husband, father and friend.
The deadly shooting was one of three that occurred in the city within a span of nine hours. Earlier Monday, at about 4:30 p.m., officers responded to a report of shots fired in the North End neighborhood of St. Paul. There, they found an 18-year-old man suffering from apparent gunshot wounds inside a corner store. The man died at the scene.
Chief Axtell and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter held a Tuesday afternoon news conference to address the shootings and their violence prevention plan.