Dr. Insanity - SWAT Team Rescues Hostages From Active Shooter

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Going to therapy is a sign of strength, not weakness. My sponsor BetterHelp makes therapy simple, with 10% off your first month to help you get started: https://betterhelp.com/DrInsanity Police are surrounding a house in the middle of Kenosha city. Inside, an unknown suspect is holding wounded hostages, and exchanging heavy gunfire with officers… In the middle of this chaos, officers have no idea who they’re dealing with or why he’s even firing at them. And with every passing minute, the situation spirals further out of control. But by the time police finally confront the gunman… it will already be too late. --- This video was made for educational purposes only. The video is presented to provide genuine footage of police incidents to promote transparency in government while providing educational, informative and newsworthy content allowing viewers to examine and assess public safety material. This is a fact-checked documentary using authoritative sources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who shot? Who shot? Go ahead! Let me see you in the house! Go! Go, go! There's a gun! There's a gun! Police are surrounding a house in the middle of Kenosha City.

Inside, an unknown gunman is holding wounded hostages and exchanging heavy gunfire with officers. What is it? Ma'am, you gotta move! Ma'am, you gotta move! Get out of him! Get moving! Get the fuck out of here! Leave! There's a lady in the house! In the middle of this chaos, officers have no idea who they're dealing with or why he's even firing at them.

But by the time police finally confront the gunman, it will already be too late. I have a hostage right here, your police officers, the kind of snoop, the right? The body's got two people are ready. Lock that window. Watch that fucking window. Contact, attack!

You're hands! Around 8.15 p.m. on a Monday night, multiple gunshots ring out in a quiet neighborhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Minutes later, at 8.19 p.m., 9-1-dispatch receives an alarming call from a man claiming someone just tried to kill him. Kenosha 911, what's the address of the emergency? I need medics and, you know, I need ambulance. Motherfucker, and it hurts. What's the address?

13, 24, 56th Street. I've just been shot. Is that a house or an apartment? It's a house. It's, it's a duplex. I've been shot in the leg and possibly the arm. The shooter is in the apartment next door, and I know he's got felony warrants out of Ohio or New York. Okay.

Following this call, officers are quickly dispatched to the scene. The caller also warns them that the gunmen may have felony warrants out of state. At the time, it sounded just like another detail and a frantic call for help. But it was really a glimpse into someone far more dangerous than police expected. Just minutes later, police officers arrive at the scene. Almost immediately, they hear a woman screaming outside the duplex. We have a shooting right here. Let me see your hands!

He's in the house? Who's shot? Who shot? What? Show me your hands! Where is he, Luke? Come out here, come out here. Okay, who got shot?

I think they got in the back time. okay there's Johnny is this all one house no that's too okay where do we get to his his unit wait no where do we get to his unit i need to know that where do we go you got to tell us so we can help people spit it out you got to know the shop yes the second one the light's at the second where the lights at as soon as officers make contact with the shaken woman outside, someone from inside quickly slams the door shut before they can get any answers. With a duplex having two separate apartments and multiple firing angles, police can't afford to wait. They need to move the woman out of danger and secure the perimeter. But just as officers

begin pressing the shooter to surrender, things take a dangerous turn. Your hands! Let me see your hand! Oh shit! Do that! Petty, there's a gun, there's a gun. Petty shot's fired. He's in the house. The gunman suddenly opens fire from the window, forcing police to scramble for cover,

with Officer Luke and his partner retreating to the west side and Officer Bray diving behind a car directly in the shooter's sights. It offers some cover, but leaves her dangerously pinned. But in the scramble, police left the wall. they'd just spoken to, completely exposed in the line of fire. Officer Luke quickly realizes she's still in danger, and they'll need to get her out before the situation escalates further. Get that lady out of there!

There's a lady in the house, we have shots fired, he's firing out the window at us. Get in the cover. Get the cover. He's at the front of the house on the south side of the road. With danger escalating by the second, more backup units raced to the scene, and within minutes, multiple officers swarm the neighborhood, unaware that this is just the beginning of a deadly shootout, one that will put both officers and civilians at fatal risk. In these types of high-stakes situations, officers must make split-second decisions, and every choice could mean the difference between life and death.

Over the next few minutes, we'll follow how they make. manage chaos, and respond under immense pressure, starting with Sergeant Brian Miller and Adam Jurgens, who are just arriving from the west and east side while the gunman continues firing. He's at the front of the house on south side of the road. Where's he at? Where's he at? What house? What house? Where's this sucker? What do you have? What do you have?

There's a living in the house. He's firing out the window at us. Okay, come back. Can you come back? Which one? You got to come. Ah, fucking Christ. Tender ground house on the road.

Ma'am, you got to move. Get out of it. Get moving. Where is it? Second house. Second house, upstairs or what? Where? Where?

He was in the front window, yeah. Clearly the situation facing officers is extremely unpredictable. The gunman has already fired from three exposed windows at the front of the house and another on the east side, where Sergeant Juergens returned fire. On the west side, two more exposed windows are accessible to the shooter, as well as a garage and a back exit officers don't even know about, giving the gunmen even more ways to slip outside or stage an ambush. But in the midst of all of this, there are two urgent problems at play. First, police think they're only dealing with an active shooter, but there are hostages, inside the house and officers have no idea yet. Second, Officer Bray and the civilian woman remain trapped and exposed to the shooter's sights.

The longer they wait, the more likely they'll be caught in the crossfire. Hey, Bray, can you move? Can you come back to me? I can't. I can't. 495, do you have the shield? We have somebody that's stuck right in front. Shield's in the squad. I'm up on the third corner.

Someone get me a shield! Stay right there, just stay behind the end of the block. I am. You got anything else? You see you there or no? We're just a suspect or this lady at? I don't know. The six, five, seven coming from the east.

Hey. He's got my husband hostage! There are people inside? This revelation finally puts everything into perspective for officers. With hostages involved, it's clear that the situation is becoming much more complicated and a rescue plan is needed urgently. So at the stakes now higher, officers have two critical priorities. First, they need to extract the pinned officer before the situation becomes even more dangerous.

Second, they must clear the perimeter and breach the house to rescue the hostages trapped inside. To move forward, Sergeant Adam Juergens requests a shield as they prepare to move with the extraction plan. But before we get to that, these cases often affect the mental health of both the officers involved and the innocent people involved. And stressful situations in your life can often have the same effect on you. This was the case for me. I had a point where powering through it wasn't working. I wasn't equipped to manage what I was feeling alone. My therapist gave me one assignment.

Write down how I feel every hour. Within days, the patterns were obvious. What spiked me, what grounded me, reporting back, kept me honest. Seeing winds in black and white made me proud. That's what finally showed me what needed to change, and how. That's why I'm sponsored by BetterHelp. They're on a mission to make starting therapy easier. You fill out a quick questionnaire and can be matched with a therapist in as little as a couple days.

If it's not the right fit, you can switch any time at no extra cost. With over 9,000 reviews and a 4.4. rating on Trust Pilot, it's a platform you can trust. Click the link in the description, or go to BetterHelp.com slash Dr. Insanity to get 10% off your first month. With that said, let's get back to the scene, where officers are about to move ahead with the rescue plan. Hey, we need the shield up here. I got somebody stuck right in front of the house. Okay, we're coming up to you.

Staying here. You see her? You see her right here where she's stuffed by the car? She's right over here. We have to get her out of that way. The house is this one right here. He was shooting right from the front window towards me. It says there's somebody in there, okay?

Okay. So I think their priority is we have to go get Bray out of there because she's really stuck. So you tell me what you want to do from here. That woman is saying that there's two people in here and that this dude has a guy hostage. All right. Hey, here's go with me.

Take your rifle. You just go that one. You ready? Okay, we'll go. Great, coming towards you, okay? Whatever is. Hey, we've got to get out. Let's go.

You face it out. I got it, I got it. Holy shit. Fortunately, the extraction goes smoothly, and Officer Brittany is pulled to safety, though the real danger is still far from over. By now, multiple officers have surrounded the house from both the east and the west sides, with additional backup units arriving from the east end. But things are still dangerously unpredictable,

because in the middle of all of this chaos, CCTV captures a car pulling sloth. Slowly into the parking lot near the house, seemingly oblivious to the active gunfire unfolding just a few feet away. I don't give a fuck, move. Get out. Fucking shooting across the street at us. You're not paying any fucking attention. With the civilian swiftly cleared from the scene, officers refocus on the real danger ahead. They need to extract the civilian woman still stuck at the corner of the house

and then quickly devise a plan to confront the gunmen without risking casualties. But as officers begin coordinating their next move, the gunmen, is already preparing to do something far worse, something that will force police to act, whether they're ready or not. Go ahead! Come on! Benfer.

God may be able to correct. Camper. Ma'am, are you hurt at all? No. Sarge, I got four. Okay, so there's a woman that's in this corner of this house that's going to be at the northeast side. And she's kind of stuck right in here.

I think she's right there. Did you see that? Did you see that? We can work a team to get her out. That's what we want to do next. You see anything or no? We have a female on this side just saying that they're shooting from the apartment out, I think, on the east side.

Is she don't get to be injured? No. Do we have any idea where the shots are coming from? So when I was shooting, I shot towards the house, and he was, it looks like he was shooting at this front window, this way towards Bray. Okay. Now, I've seen him break windows,

and I can see gunshots that are actually on, like, all sides of the house. So I don't know where he's at. Okay. We can see the same train trains. We're going to move up a little bit closer to a couple of garages. We can take puffer up. All right, more shot fired. Are people inside?

Those painful screams that followed the gunshot confirmed the worst. The gunman has just shot one of the hostages inside the house. Now, more than ever, officers know they need to act. If they wait any longer, more lives could be put at risk. With that terrifying realization, officers immediately scrambled to collect as much critical information. as possible before moving inside to confront the shooter. They still don't know exactly how many people are inside, where the shooter is positioned,

or who exactly they're dealing with. But that is about to change. We need to figure out if we have a hostage in there and we got to move. So she says there is. She told me that there's a, her husband is with the shooter and there's the only two that are in there. Yeah, let me, let me work on that. Ma'am, who's inside the house again? What's her name?

My husband, Gary Tubbs. Matthew Lopez, got it. Okay, see what you got associated for Matthew Lopez in the house. This woman out here is saying that that's the gunman. And I believe that Gary Tubbs is the husband. She's saying he's stuck inside with him. With a suspect name identified, officers can finally begin to piece together who they're dealing with. And what dispatch relays back raises serious concerns.

concerns. According to their checks, Matthew Lopez is a registered offender. Even worse, the initial 911 caller also told dispatch that Lopez has felony warrants in Ohio or New York and is possibly using a fake name, though his true motives would prove to be far more complicated. With all this in mind, police realize they're dealing with an armed offender with a violent, disturbing past. But just as that information is sinking in, something completely unexpectedly unexpected happens. The supposed perpetrator inside the home picks up the phone and calls 911 himself. Hello? This is a connection. 911. What's the address to the emergency?

I have a hostage right here and your fucking police officers are trying to sue me? Have I just got two people already? I'm not afraid of dying. I'm not to kill him. I know. God, I got it right to fuck back in the head right now. I see one guess. He's going to speak over me. This is the problem with the fucking police. I'm telling you, like, my play? Okay. I don't give the fuck. And I don't I don't have much battery, let's either. So if you got to go on me get this fucking battery, I got a fucking really if you trigger a figure, lady, and I still got three balls left.

How many people are in there with you? Two. The people that are with you, are they injured? Yes. Okay, where do they have injuries, too? In the femur. In the femur? Because your officer kept coming in there.

I asked them for simple demand. Both of them shot in the femur? The other man with the intruder is scared the shit out of me. You understand me? She's my neighbor. I can't just like to sign down me one more time. Please, people here close. Let's see what we're going to.

I'm going to hang up so that somebody can call and talk with you, okay? Okay, ma'am. Just make sure to answer your phone. Okay, dear. Okay, what do you need me to do, okay? Okay, hang up and then they're going to call you. If you're going to call you, Jerry, but you was looking down. Okay, above the way, about me, about you know, okay.

Shut up. Although Lopez never explains his motives or makes demands, he does confirm he's already shot two people inside the home. and in the background of the call, a wounded hostage can be heard, groaning, he's going to do it, he's going to kill me. So with hostages already bleeding and the gunmen threatening to kill, the margin for error is razor thin, and the choices police make within the next 10 minutes will determine who makes it out alive and who doesn't. Watch that window, watch that fucking window.

Contact, contact! Hey, hear it! For now, the situation is becoming more. more hectic than before. And the longer police wait to make a move, the worse things will get. They have to get inside. We have a mail on the phone saying

he has two hostages shot, two all right. And then he has three bullets and the full numbers in the narrative. We still have him on the line. He's really going to fucking hear me.

I'm going to try to call this stuff. Go on the seat, baby. Five, five, three. Move up to that truck, okay? I am. Stay by. We have to be in the house. Where we have the contact team?

You got Peps and O'Neill and I. Well, if you have injured, I don't know what we have to go in. Okay, you want me to try to call them first and see if we can work this? We can try to, if they have a good medical, what kind of fucking am that? If you can make the team, I think you're right. make the team, I think you're right. I think we're probably going to have to. You got a team. Can you get some over there?

Yeah. All right. Got long cover? Cover. At this stage of the standoff, multiple developments are happening behind the scenes. Negotiators are patched in, calling Lopez's phone and trying to draw him back into conversation as the perimeter tightens around him. Medics are staged just blocks away, waiting at a nearby elementary school.

And around the neighborhood, roadblocks are set up to keep any more civilians from wandering straight into the middle of a gunfight. With all these precautions in place, officers on the ground prepare to make one final attempt to reach Lopez and push for a surrender. Keep doing your thing, but I'm going to try to call them too. You guys, two or three, I think go over here on the northeast corner of the house. If we can move these guys up around here around the trees and try to get them out, I think that would be a benefit.

This is a multi-fucking, so it's three doors? Fuck. I think the one on the east is a different unit. It's one on the south here. So that window in the southwest has rounds to it. It's shattered. We can get a rifle there. That's something used to go in the front.

Probably the best option. 553.3.2 is not working, so I need the phone number for this guy. 262-5-15, stating his name is Matthew. Please leave your message for 2-2-2-2-2. Well, he just went the voicemail. With Lopez's phone now going straight to voicemail, any chance of negotiating a peaceful surrender is gone. Officers realize they can't wait any longer.

It's time to go in. Sergeant Brian Miller coordinates a contact team. Their plan is simple, but high risk. Enter through the front door with a ballistic shield, neutralize the threat, and extracts the hostages. At the same time, other officers are instructed to reposition and cover additional angles around the perimeter. Officers know this is extremely risky, and once they breached the door,

they could be walking straight into a gunfight. All right, well, let's get moving. Let's get a shield team. O'Neill wants you out, walk up with it, split off, and take that window on the southwest side. Got it, ready? Keep trying, but, yeah, I don't know what I mean? I don't. I'll keep trying to have the shield.

The shield. All right. What's the plan? Where are we headed? Front door. Right there where the mailbox is. O'Neill is to take the window that's cracking the top of the side. I see it?

Right next to the door. Yeah. So peel off then. Step, move up. Your right side and left side. On the shield. All right. Nice.

Slow. Durkin's one left. Tempe are moving up. All right. Ready? All right, moving. This is slow. I got the window.

It's just the left, the front door. Copy. Do that window? Got it. Two all the way around is one. Okay, go up. Go up, go up, go up. There's one man that, I saw them.

What do you want, what do you want? Don't you peel up the other side of the house? Go ahead. I want to try it, kick her, right? Kick it? Yep. Contact, contact! Left, I mean, he went left.

What do you got? Watch that window. Watch that fucking window. Watch the window. Hey, hands. Hands. I got him. I got him.

What do you got? Where's the shooter? What do you got? I don't know. I kick the gun here. Gets your hand. Keep my hand. As police barge inside the house,

they find two severely wounded men, both lying on the floor. Bleeding and barely responsive. It's not yet clear who they are, but both appear to be hostages suffering from gunshot wounds. However, the situation is still far from under control. Beyond this room, there is still a kitchen area, multiple bedrooms, as well as a basement.

And with the shooter still unaccounted for, Lopez could be anywhere. This dude's right here. Right here. You find that. Stop. I need light. Someone give me light. I got the hand.

Give me my guy. We need to drag him out. God, John, I got it! Okay, come on. Force up, push up. Bring men up. What do you want? Six, five, seven, we got med and around.

Hey, drag him out. Drag him out. He's probably got a gunshot to the leg, mate. Nope, he's got a head shot to the wound. Hey, we need to find, they said there were two injured in here. One, two. We're here with me to rest of the house. Five, seven, we've got two apparent with bloodshops to the head.

Okay. Keep your stage for a minute, we're going to clear the house. We've got a stroll. That's me. All right. Okay. All right, let's go. You're going to take this right. I'm going to take a lap.

I got you. I'm holding on kitchen. Give you one. I got you. Ready? Check down there. Check down there. Go on, one, one.

Hold on. Hold on right there. Okay. Room clear. Room clear. Okay. I'm out. I got closed door to my left. Kitchen opens up to the right.

Okay. Switch out. She'll go first. I got laid on in that ring window there. All right. All right. So it looks like a back exit door here. All right.

We can go. You want to. Just go up a little bit. Hi. Thank you, you one guy. What does this lead to? It might go to a basement, I don't know. Let's see it.

So, just move this. Let's go over and see if that goes out to us. Close the door. Close door. Hold on that. I got it. How many people are we still missing right now? So, all right.

So, all right. Two hostages. So far, we've got two. So we've both gunshot one. We don't know about anybody else. Okay. So I'll take people all counted for. No.

Just two. There's two. Hold that. All right, all they'll just come. All right, just hit that door now. Ready? Yeah. Locked.

Okay. With the basement door being locked, a major complication faces officers. Basement entries are some of the most dangerous spaces for law enforcement. The narrow layout, blind corners, and poor lighting make it almost impossible to clear safely, especially when a suspect is barricaded inside. If Lopez is down there, officers could be walking straight into an ambush. So instead of forcing the door, a sergeant makes the call to hold the basement for now and shifts the priority to secure the outside perimeter, confirm whether the gunman slipped out

or is still hiding elsewhere on the property. Officer Eric Lougham heads out to check the exterior, and that's when they hear someone in the garage. Yeah, just come with me. Someone hold there. Are you guys in the garage? Are you guys in the garage? How many people are in there? Just you and the two dogs?

Can you leave the dogs in there and come out? Okay, we're going to open the door, okay? Just make sure I can see your hands, all right? Yep. All right. Okay. Who was all inside the apartment? My husband, Gary Tuv. And who else?

Is there anybody else we don't know? Is there anybody else that was in there? No. Okay. Ma'am, why don't you... Dewey lives in the side apartment. Dewey? Turns out the civilian woman from earlier managed to run and hide inside the garage.

According to her, there's someone else. still inside the house, in a different section of the duplex that officers haven't cleared yet. Until now, all attention has been focused on the front unit and the basement. But the layout of the home is a two-unit structure, with the second unit still unaccounted for. But before Officer Eric Glom can relay that information, Sergeant Brian Miller is already patrolling near that side of the house, unaware it hasn't been cleared. What door is that, do you know? We don't know where anything's at.

Okay. This is the... It should be the living room. This should be the second place. It's in the kitchen. Blue, Boo! That's the living room? Living room?

Living room? Living room? Kitchen. All right. Yeah. We got here, we're going? Yeah. Police.

Police. One person up. Police Department. Sergeant Miller. Hi. Come on out here, guys. I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm shot. You're shot? Where?

In my leg. Okay. Can you else in here? No, just me and my dog. All right, let's go out. Okay, I've got officers right here by me. Okay, I'm gonna let them help you, okay? Okay, thank you.

Use the door open, come on out, come on out. You're welcome. Alright, go bye. Hold that. Here, let's be right through the step. Go ahead and step my door, please. You don't let my dog out? Your dog's be fine.

Who else is here with you? Nobody. It was just me and my dog. Is this a wrap around the same apartment? No. No, it's... 295. Yes.

Hey, so you got two victims, you have the suspect, we still try and there. We can't clear the basin yet. This is a different guy, a different apartment. Okay. Watch that window, right? Yep. Is that what he said? That's where I do believe he's at.

Inside the second unit, Sergeant Miller finds the same man who first called 911. He's also suffering from a gunshot wound, making him the third confirmed victim extracted from the scene so far. But Sergeant Miller quickly realizes something is not adding up. Earlier, Lopez claimed there were only two hostages. But now, police have found a third victim. If this man is a hostage, just like the other two they extracted earlier, that means Lopez might have been lying. And there could be even more people inside the house unaccounted for.

Police proceed to check the unit but find no sign of the gunman. That leaves only one place they haven't cleared. The basement. Officers quickly regroup and head back towards the locked basement door prepared to face whoever might be hiding there. Ready? Open! I feel up. Open it's out.

Okay, get the shield up. All right, Miller. Yep, you go one. Mike, I'm all of them. All right, so ready? Two with three, right, go. Go. Great. Okay, I'm going to move up into the door.

I'm going to take to the left here. We've got more up here. Okay, just slow down, Eric. Let me clear this. All right, I'm on you. I'm one. Yep. Ready?

Blue, blue. Go to this side. Okay, there's a dead corner here I can't clear yet. All right, I got it. Fuck. See that corner I'm talking about? Yep. Alright, let me peel off.

Okay. I'll peel up for this left side here. Clear back here. All clear? So we got a big room to clear. We could probably use one more. All right. You got two.

You got four? You got four total. Eric, I'm going to go one. I'm going to go right. Okay. Yeah, hold on this part. All right. Moving.

Moving. I got this door here, so I'm going to check that corner. No, let's got the corner I'm on you. The corner's good. That's good? Yep. Okay, I'm all open this door, Mike. Okay, I think this is the cellar door.

Flip blue, lo, lo, blow, lo, blow, blue. Dead space. Officers go on to clear the rest of the basement with no sign of Lopez or any additional hostages. For a brief moment, they believe Lopez escaped during the chaos and could still be at large. That changes when one of the surviving hostages gives a description, of the suspect. A Hispanic male, early 30s, heavily tattooed, wearing a green shirt. With that description, officers quickly realized Matthew Lopez isn't missing. He was one of the wounded men they already carried out earlier. He shot himself and was critically injured the moment officers

forced their way inside. With the scene fully secured, Lopez and the injured hostages were transported to hospital for treatment. In the meantime, detectives got to work piecing together the night's events, why Lopez opened fire, and what his true motives may have been. What they discovered was a spiral of paranoia and violence. In the days before the shooting, Matthew Lopez had been living in the duplex with housemates after moving from New York to start fresh, but over the weekend, he disappeared with a friend to use drugs, came back agitated and paranoid, claiming he was targeted and targeted and,

and drugged, that his phone was wiped, and ranting about a stolen kilo of cocaine. On the evening of December 19th, while others cooked and watched a movie, Lopez finally snapped. He suddenly grabbed a woman, pulled out a pistol, shouted about people outside trying to kill him, and fired two rounds into the ceiling. Investigators later confirmed the bullet holes above the living room area. As panic spread, Lopez turned the gun and shot one resident in the femur. When a neighbor stepped outside to investigate the commotion, Lopez shot him as well. Detectives later concluded that it was the peak of a drug-fueled paranoia spiral that made Lopez lash out at those around him

before confronting police and turning the gun on himself. The injured victims were treated and discharged from hospital, but Matthew Lopez was later pronounced dead. And with him, the true motive for the Kenosha standoff died as well.