WRAL News is learning more about how a police officer stationed at a WakeMed facility was killed months earlier.
Roger Smith, a police officer who worked at WakeMed Garner Healthplex, was shot and killed after getting into an altercation with a patient on Nov. 9, 2025. He was 59 years old.
Other WRAL Top Stories
According to an autopsy report on Tuesday from the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 29-year-old Benji Martin, who is charged with Smith's murder, was able to wrestle Smith's gun away from him before shooting the officer.
In one of the 911 calls of that day, which was obtained by WRAL News, six shots were heard in the background. Smith's autopsy confirmed two of those shots hit Smith in his shoulder and his right thigh.
The autopsy said that after he was shot, Smith went into cardiac arrest and died less than an hour after the shooting.
According to court documents, friends of Martin told police that he had been "acting erratically and sending unusual text messages to them the night prior," and one 911 caller told a dispatcher they had a patient that came in "tripping out bad."
Martin was working at a THC/hemp store in Fuquay-Varina the night before the shooting. He was known to take THC gummies in the past, and police are looking into whether Martin took gummies around the time of the shooting. He worked from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Nov. 7, during which he was texting his friend, according to a warrant. Police talked with friends and the owner of the store.
The autopsy said both the Garner Police Department and Raleigh Police Department are still investigating the shooting, adding that the North Carolina SBI could potentially take over.