Dashcam video shows Arizona officer intentionally running over suspect

Police chief: Hitting suspect with car was right decision 03:51
By Brian Todd, Miguel Marquez and Steve Almasy-Wed April 15, 2015

(CNN)Police in Arizona said Tuesday that an officer who intentionally used his car to run into a suspect with a rifle probably saved lives.

Video of the incident has stirred debate about what type of force police should have used to detain a man with a gun.

"Everything in the video seems to point towards an obvious excessive use of force. It is miraculous that my client isn't dead," said attorney Michelle Cohen-Metzger.

The incident was recorded February 19 on the dashcam of two Marana police cars that were following the suspect, 36-year-old Mario Valencia.

In one video, an officer who was tailing Valencia at slow speed reports over the radio that the suspect has fired one round in the air with a rifle he is accused of stealing that morning from a Walmart.

Another patrol car zooms past, runs into the man from behind then hits a short cinder block wall next to a driveway. Video from Officer Michael Rapiejko's camera shows the officer running the man over and the windshield smashing as the car hits the wall.

"Oh Jesus Christ. Man down," the officer in the first car says.

Police in Marana, which is about a half-hour from Tucson, have justified Rapiejko's actions.

"If we're going to choose between maybe we'll let him go a little bit farther and see what happens, or we're going to take him out now and eliminate any opportunity he has to hurt somebody, you're going to err on the side of, in favor of the innocent people," Police Chief Terry Rozema said. "Without a doubt."

The situation warranted deadly force because the suspect was headed to an area where several hundred people were working, Rozema told CNN's Brooke Baldwin.

"This officer made a split-second decision, and in retrospect, when all the dust clears, I think we look at this and say, yeah, there's things we can learn from this," he said, "but the entire community is safe, all the officers are safe, and even the suspect in this case is safe."

Cohen-Metzger said officers didn't make any effort to de-escalate the situation of a man "clearly suicidal, clearly in crisis."

CNN affiliate KOLD reported Valencia was in serious condition when he was taken to the hospital and was released into police custody two days later.