DCI rules Sioux Falls police officer justified in December shooting

Trent Abrego
Sioux Falls Argus Leader

A Division of Criminal Investigation review has determined a Sioux Falls police officer was justified in a December shooting.

The incident occurred on Dec. 20 at a Kum & Go in north central Sioux Falls. According to the report, a police officer conducted a traffic stop on a Kia Forte with substitute license plates. During the stop, the driver, Renee Two Bulls, provided a fictitious name and birthday. 

After being asked to leave the vehicle, Two Bulls refused commands to exit and a struggle occurred while an officer attempted to remove her from the vehicle, the report states. The engine was running, and while an officer attempted to turn off the ignition, the front seat passenger swatted the officer’s hand away. In the report, an officer reported that during the struggle, they believed an occupant in the vehicle was grabbing at their duty pistol belt. 

More:Sioux Falls officer on administrative leave after shooting 2 people at Kum & Go gas station

During that struggle, the suspect accelerated the vehicle in reverse with the driver’s door open, according to the report. Officers were reportedly between the vehicle’s open driver side door and a gas pump. The interior of the diver’s door contacted an officer's back when it was accelerating backward, eventually colliding into a trash can at the gas pump island, which was compressed between the vehicle and a gas pump barrier. 

An officer fired five shots in rapid succession into the vehicle, striking both Two Bulls and an adult front seat passenger. 

Two Bulls was shot four times to the left side of her body, while the passenger was found to have a gunshot wound to his left upper arm and right wrist. Officers rendered aid to both, who were transported to a hospital via ambulance. The front seat passenger was treated and released from the hospital, while Two Bulls was hospitalized with non-fatal injuries. 

After being discharged from the hospital, Two Bulls was arrested on 14 warrants that included grand theft, aggravated assault on law enforcement, third-degree burglary, DWI (second offense), possession of a controlled substance and possession of a stolen vehicle. Earlier in December, Two Bulls was the driver of a vehicle that fled from a different Kum & Go, where she dragged an officer several feet before the officer fell to the ground. 

In the report, the department noted that Two Bulls’ blood tested positive for alcohol, amphetamine and methamphetamine. 

In the past nearly year and a half, more shootings involving law enforcement in the Sioux Falls area have occurred than any other time in almost the last two decades.

Before an October 2021 incident that left a man with a knife dead, there had only been eight "officer-involved shootings" in the city since 2004. Five of the last nine involved the Sioux Falls police, two involved the Minnehaha County Sheriff's Office and one by the South Dakota Highway Patrol.

Now that total has increased from eight to 17, with eight occurring since the end of March. And of the nine since October 2021, four have involved the death of a person, according to Argus Leader reporting.