The Athens-Clarke County Police Department has released a comprehensive video that details the circumstances leading up to the fatal shooting of a 38-year-old man at a park last weekend and body camera footage of the shooting itself.
The video includes multiple 911 calls from Saturday and Sunday, several of which report a man walking around the area of Walker Park in northeast Athens carrying a gun and acting confrontational with passersby. One woman called 911 twice Saturday, first to report seeing the man, then to report that he had shot at her car.
The police video, which is more than 10 minutes long, showed photos of the woman’s silver Ford Fusion with damage from multiple gunshots. The woman was not injured.
Officers responded to the multiple calls Saturday and searched the area for more than an hour with the help of a K-9 unit and drones, the video said. Police were unable to locate the suspect that day.
The following day, Athens police received similar reports of a man carrying a long gun and acting confrontational toward others at the same park. Surveillance video from the Athens Splash Pad Waterpark and Playground appears to show the man walking around the pavilion with a gun and pointing it at children and adults.
That man was later identified as Juan Joseph Daniele Castellano.
Police believe Castellano robbed the concession stand at the splash pad pavilion, then carjacked a man in the parking lot, according to the video. The video shows the suspect driving the stolen black 2003 Honda Pilot down a grassy embankment from the park’s parking lot before stopping in front of several patrol cars blocking his escape.
After stopping the car, Castellano got out while still holding the long gun, the video shows. Police can be heard pleading with him to drop the gun as the man makes demands of the responding officers. One officer warily calls out that the man was “moving to a defensive position” as police surround the suspect and find cover. Castellano can be heard shouting that he wants to “talk to state police” in the video.
The responding officers continue to plead with the man to drop his weapon for several minutes until shots are fired. It’s not clear in the video who fired first or whether Castellano fired his gun at all. The GBI has not released details about who shot first or what kind of weapon Castellano was carrying.
After the gunshots, police cautiously approached the stolen car to assess the suspect, using an armored truck as well as drones. The video shows an emergency medical worker checking Castellano for a pulse and not finding one, and an officer noted that it had been about 20 minutes since the shots were fired.
According to Athens police, four officers fired their weapons during the incident: Lt. Greg Slaney, Officer Joseph Impeduglia, Officer Hunter Lance and Officer Joshua Echols.
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