WakeMed Garner 911 callers describe struggle, shooting that killed officer

Multiple shots were fired as callers pleaded for police and paramedics to help after a struggle broke out between a WakeMed Garner Healthplex officer and a suspect on Nov. 8, according to 911 calls released Wednesday.

Benji Martin Jr., 29, is accused of murder in the fatal shooting of WakeMed police officer Roger Smith around 9 a.m. in the center’s emergency department. Smith had worked at WakeMed for 14 years. He was buried Monday in Clayton, after a service in Raleigh.

Martin was also shot during the struggle and has remained hospitalized. Police have said he will be formally charged when he is released from the hospital and taken to the Wake County Detention Center.

Martin’s friends have said they took him to WakeMed on Nov. 8 because he was having a mental health issue. He had been dealing with the stress of his grandmother’s failing health and his pregnant fiancee’s hospitalization after she lost one of their twin babies, friends said. The second baby died in utero Nov. 8 while Martin was in surgery, his friends said.

What the 911 callers said

The calls reveal a situation that quickly spiraled out of control, as witnesses frantically tried to help and learn more about what led to the shooting.

A woman who called 911 around 8:57 a.m. said police were needed immediately at the Healthplex emergency department

“We’ve got a patient that is tripping out bad,” the caller says before multiple gunshots go off. “He is fighting with security.”

Other people can be heard screaming in the background, and then a single person yelling as the room goes quiet. The operator asks if the caller is still on the line, but she doesn’t respond.

Someone later yells, “Arrest him please. He shot a [expletive] officer.”

In the second call — six seconds after the first — a man says he is with WakeMed campus police and needs urgent help.

“I have an officer being attacked on the floor,” the man says. “The officer is being attacked as we speak.”

The third call comes in about 34 seconds later, when a woman again reports an officer has been shot.

“Is the suspect still around?” the dispatcher asks.

“Yes,” the woman says. “He is in the front lobby. He’s got a gun.”

A fifth call comes in about 40 seconds later from the man who previously identified himself as a WakeMed campus police officer. The officer is down, he says, “and they are trying to get his gun off him.”

“I got one suspect on scene. He is kneeling over the officer at the moment. The officer is down, not moving,” the man says.

Garner police have not released additional details about the shooting or what led to the struggle. They also have not said whether the gun used in the shooting, which one 911 caller identified as a .32-caliber firearm, belonged to the officer.

This story was originally published November 19, 2025 at 4:00 PM.