Police stations are built to be
fortresses, safe havens. But what
happens when the lethal threat doesn't
wait in a dark alley, but walks right
through the front door? Today, we break
down two cases where that happened. Two
police departments attacked from within
to understand what officers face in a
close quarters ambush. We're
reconstructing these incidents through
their own accounts, court filings, and
investigative reports. September [music]
3rd, Port Orange, Florida. Dispatch
issued a priority 1 alarm. The suspect,
71-year-old Linda Gene Croto, no
criminal record. She walked through the
front doors and opened fire at civilian
staff. Officers raced back to their own
headquarters to confront it. This is the
footage captured by the headquarters own
surveillance cameras at the moment the
incident began. 8:35 a.m. Linda, gun
already in hand, walks in through the
front doors of the police headquarters
building. Her pace isn't rushed, isn't
hidden, almost casual, as if she's
walking into somewhere completely
familiar. At this moment, there isn't a
single officer posted on guard inside or
outside the building. Once inside the
lobby, Linda raises the gun, pointing it
toward the staff working behind the
counter. As if worried they hadn't seen
her yet, she moves closer and raises it
again, a strange repeated gesture, as
though she needed to make absolutely
sure she'd been noticed. The moment
officers inside confirm she's armed,
they trigger an emergency alert and move
for cover. Seeing no one paying
attention to her, Linda walks a slow
loop around the lobby, almost
distracted, then suddenly fires. The
force of that first shot seems to
startle even her. Everyone in the lobby,
along with several administrative
officers working behind the counter, is
thrown into panic. That shot was aimed
directly at the department's
administrative office where several
staff members were working at the time.
Everyone drops immediately taking cover.
In the middle of the chaos, a civilian
waiting to file paperwork, clearly
already on edge, bursts out of an
office, shouting at Linda. An officer
pulls her back inside, out of the line
of fire. An administrative officer tries
to talk her down, asking her to lower
the weapon, but she doesn't seem to
register what's being said to her. Her
eyes, her body language suggests she's
somewhere else entirely, disconnected
from the room in front of her. 8:40 a.m.
After the attempt to communicate goes
nowhere, Linda turns and walks out of
the building. By now, officers have
circled back and taken up positions
[music] around the front entrance.
>> Drop it. Drop the gun.
Drop it.
Drop it. I'm going to shoot you. DROPPED
THE GUN.
>> WHEN THE call goes out that your own
station is under fire, your blood runs
cold. We pulled up to the perimeter. The
suspect walked out of the building. It
was a 71-year-old woman for half a
second. Your brain doesn't know what to
do with that, but a gun doesn't care how
old the hand holding it is.
>> We gave her multiple loud commands. She
didn't drop it. She raised the weapon
and pointed it at her own head. In my
head, a suicidal subject with a gun is
still a subject with a gun. If it can go
to her own head, it can come up in a
fraction of a second. She went down, but
it wasn't over. The gun landed next to
her. Even hit, she reached for it again.
That's the moment that changes
everything in your head. Three of us
fired. 18 rounds total until she stopped
moving toward it. Linda Croto died the
next morning. Investigators later
learned her husband had recently passed
away, which family members say preceded
a mental health crisis. Cases like hers
are sometimes described by researchers
as suicide by cop. Incidents that have
prompted ongoing debate among policy
experts and mental health advocates
about whether crisis intervention teams
rather than patrol response could change
the outcome in some encounters. We'll
come back to that question. But first,
if an attack in the lobby is
frightening, an ambush at the employee
entrance is something else entirely.
>> Put it down. PUT IT DOWN, BUDDY. PUT IT
DOWN. THIS unprovoked attack on a police
officer took place at the Ross County
Sheriff's Office. Sergeant Eric Cocherin
was at the end of his shift. Inside the
secured area of the sheriff's office, a
place so routinely safe, he'd already
taken off his vest. Outside,
surveillance cameras caught a
42-year-old man, Nicholas Mitchell,
circling the building. Then came a knock
at the back door.
>> 24 years on the job. I was clocking out.
Heard a knock at the back glass. opened
the door. It was just a guy, not
screaming, not erratic.
>> Hey, buddy. Um, can you help me out real
quick? Can you get a couple more
officers?
>> What's going on?
>> Um,
somebody said they're going to hurt my
family. They wanted me to hurt kids and
I can't do it.
>> Okay. He asked for help. Your brain
shifts into customer service mode
automatically. His hand was in his
jacket pocket the whole time. something
we're trained to watch for. But he was
so calm about it, I let it sit for one
second too long. I got to do this. The
moment he said that, he pulled a Ruger
380. Everything in my head just stopped
making sense for a second. I was still
processing a conversation. He'd already
made his decision.
>> Wo wo no. Put that down. PUT IT DOWN.
PUT IT DOWN. PUT IT DOWN, BUDDY. PUT
We exchanged fire right there in the
doorway, point blank. I fired four
shots. He fired back. Then this massive
burning impact hit my right chest. No
vest. That 380 round tore through my
chest wall, hit my left lung, my liver,
and stopped 5 mm from my heart.
>> [clears throat]
>> I went down on the floor. Felt like I
was drowning in my own blood. My guys
ran out, screaming. Everything started
sounding far away. just the radio chaos
underneath it all. My vision started
tunneling. They were pressing down on my
chest, trying to seal it. Every breath
felt like breathing glass. I could hear
them calling for a helicopter. Hear
someone say the suspect was down. They
kept telling me to squeeze their hand.
Stay awake. 24 years on the job and I
was bleeding out on the floor of my own
department. I thought this was it.
>> Nicholas Mitchell died from a gunshot
wound to the head. Investigators found a
diary in his home filled with conspiracy
theories about being coerced to harm
children. Like Linda Croto, his family
and investigators point to an unadressed
mental health crisis behind the attack.
Cases like these have FUELED A BROADER
DEBATE. COULD BETTER FUNDED CRISIS
RESPONSE. Mobile mental health units,
co-responder programs change how these
encounters end? There's no single
answer, and reasonable people, including
officers themselves, disagree. Sergeant
Eric Cochran was airlifted to Grant
Medical Center in Columbus. He spent 27
days in the hospital, eight of those in
a coma, multiple surgeries, lasting
physical damage. But surviving the
bullets was only half of it. When Coer
sought counseling for PTSD afterward, he
was told there was an 8-month waiting
list, a delay advocates say is common
for first responders nationwide, not
unique to his department. Rather than
let other first responders face that
same weight, he medically retired and
founded the Coker and Strong Foundation,
which funds immediate nocost mental
health treatment for police,
firefighters, and medics. Reflecting on
his survival, Sergeant Eric Coker shared
a powerful message. I see the scars
everyday, but now I see them as battle
scars. I know what I'm talking about,
and now I have to fight for the others.
The physical wounds heal.