Fairfax County police have released body camera footage of a shooting in Reston, Virginia, last month that left a woman dead after she apparently struck an officer in the face with a knife.

On the morning of September 16, the officer responded to the woman’s apartment complex on Sunrise Valley Drive in Reston after a health care provider asked police to perform a welfare check on her — because she was reportedly in an “agitated state.”

WTOP’s Dick Uliano reported that the video shows the violent encounter between the officer and 33-year-old Sydney Wilson.

The body camera video shows the officer knocking on her apartment door. The woman opens the door and quickly closes the door, Uliano reported.

The second time the officer knocks, Wilson opens the door and immediately begins swinging a knife at the officer, hitting him in the head.

He orders her to stop, but she continues walking toward him and backs up to the end of a short, dead-end hallway, where the officer finally opened fire. Wilson is seen charging at the officer with the knife before firing three shots to stop the attack.

Responding first responders attempted to help Wilson. She was transported to a hospital where she later died.

The officer, later identified by Fairfax Police Chief Kevin Davis as Peter Liu, is a 14-year veteran who suffered a non-life-threatening head wound. Uliano said police have opened a criminal investigation into the use of force, and an investigation by the Internal Affairs Bureau is also underway.

Liu is currently on limited military service. Davis said the officer did an excellent job of trying to de-escalate the situation before he was forced to open fire.

You can watch the body camera video below. Warning: The following video contains explicit images that may not be suitable for certain audiences.

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