MOBILE, Ala. (WIAT) - Shortly after the video was shot, Mobile Police Officer Steven Green was fatally wounded by Lawrence Wallace Junior, according to investigators. The attack happened when Wallace arrived at the Mobile County Jail.

Authorities say Wallace then stole a patrol car. The incident ended when officers shot and killed Wallace during a standoff later that day. 

The video of the suspect being led to a patrol car may provide some clues about what led to the attack.
He appeared to be talking to reporters in the video, but it is difficult to understand much of what he said. The last line is crystal clear.

"I'll be out before I reach down there," said Wallace.

In the video Lawrence Wallace Jr. is being escorted towards a patrol car with his hands cuffed.
He is able to get his hands far enough around the front of his shirt to grab a large diamond shaped object hanging from a necklace and hold it up to TV cameras. When he let go the object was shaped like a triangle. It is that moment that some believe he may have recovered a weapon or possibly a tool to pick the handcuffs. Whatever the answer, every detail of the video will likely be studied. Many police departments analyze attacks on other officers as training opportunities. The death of a fellow officer is both painful and sobering no matter where they work.

"We're out here just trying to keep the peace and enforce the laws and it could be any one of us at any time," Officer Buddy Partridge, Gardendale Police Department. "You have to be vigilant keep your eyes open, watch each other's back. Wear your safety gear. You have to be ready for anything."

Officer Partridge has seen suspects slip out of cuffs or maneuver their cuffed hands from behind their backs. 

"It's happened; from time to time it does happen. I've had a female with tiny, tiny wrists who said she was double jointed and slipped her hand out of a cuff before. And you've seen people that are really limber take the cuffs from behind their backs while they are sitting in the back seat of the patrol car and slip them over their legs and have the cuffs in front, so it does happen," said Partridge.

He says if someone is going to hurt an officer it's going to happen with their hands or what's in them.

"You never know what the mental capacity is of that person so you have to try to treat everybody on a fair and even keel, but at the same time never let your guard down," said Partridge.