When three San Diego police officers walked up Anthony Elliott’s driveway, they mentally prepared to deliver the awful news that their colleague and friend had been shot in the head.
But before they could even ring the doorbell, Tony’s voice crackled through the speaker – calm, unmistakable, alive.
It was December 2023 when Sergeant Elliott, a decorated San Diego police officer, former Navy sailor, SWAT team member, and father-of-two, was chasing a suspect through rows of shopping carts at the front of a grocery store in the leafy suburb of Carmel Valley when everything went black.
The suspect, involved in a domestic violence case and known to be dangerous, climbed over a brick wall before turning back around with a concealed weapon and firing.
‘He jumped a wall. I was right behind him. I didn’t even see the gun because of the angle. Next thing I know, I’m five feet away and he shoots me in the head.’
The bullet struck Elliott in the head, entering his skull, burrowing into his brain, but incredibly stopping just short of ending his life – but remarkably, Elliott never lost consciousness.
He remembers the moment with chilling clarity – the way he caught himself on nearby shopping carts with the one side of his body that still worked, preventing a second impact to his head that might have proven fatal.
‘It’s ironic,’ he said. ‘It’s usually the secondary blow – hitting the pavement – that finishes you off. But I caught myself. That probably saved my life.’
Three colleagues from the police department were the bearers of bad news when they also heard Tony Elliott’s voice over the Ring Doorbell cam
Despite his wife’s anguish, Elliott has returned to the force and is back on the beat
Sergeant Elliott charted his road to recovery through his Instagram
While blood pooled onto the concrete beneath him, Elliott still had the presence of mind to issue instructions to his squad – not about tactics or arrests, but about love.
‘Tell my kids daddy’s going to be okay,’ he told one of them. ‘Tell my wife I love her. I wanted them to know I tried.
He remembers telling his fellow officers how to tend to his wound and remembers thinking of his toddler son and his newborn brother.
‘I knew what was happening. I told my guys to check for an exit wound. I knew I was shot. I couldn’t move my left side. I figured this is it. So I started saying my goodbyes.’
Touchingly recalling the moment, Elliott explained: ‘I wasn’t thinking about my career. I wasn’t thinking about my house or my job,’ he said. ‘I was thinking about my wife and my boys. That’s all.’
Medics rushed him into an ambulance and began ripping off his uniform on the trauma bed, and Elliott somehow still had his phone.
‘I’ve seen that bed a thousand times – I’ve stood over it while others laid on it. Now it was me.’
He tried calling Laura, but her phone was off. With two babies at home, she was catching up on some sleep. His experience told him what would come next.
‘I knew they were going to come to my house and say I’d been shot in the head,’ Elliott recalled in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com.
‘Before they can say “…but he’s okay,” she’ll already think I’m dead. I couldn’t let her feel that.
‘I wanted my wife Laura to hear my voice. I figured, how could I be dead if she could hear me talking?’
So he waited for the Ring camera to activate. And when three of his fellow officers showed up to deliver the dreaded news, Elliott spoke through the speaker, shocking his colleagues while also attempting to soothe his wife in his darkest moment.
Elliott is seen with stitches in his head following his injury
The bullet entered his skull, burrowing into his brain where it remains to this day
Officers flinched in disbelief. Elliott, laying in a trauma unit with a bullet lodged in his brain, had accessed his Ring camera remotely – all to spare his wife a few seconds of anguish.
‘You guys are good looking,’ Elliott said through the Ring camera.
‘What’s up dude?’ one of his colleagues said casually in response.
‘She’s going to freak out when she sees you, just be prepared,’ he told them, with one officer telling him he was there because she would recognize them.
Another asks ‘how are you feeling?’ prompting a candid, ‘I’m feeling like I got shot in the head’ from Elliott.
As they walk in, one officer says, ‘hey Tony, we’re inside… we’ll see you soon alright.’
Doctors were stunned Elliott survived the initial injury. Even more astonishing was the fact he was talking, thinking, planning. His brain had absorbed the bullet, but it hadn’t shut down.
‘The doctors wanted to see what I could do – if I could still speak, if I still had presence of mind. They let me go through with the call.’
Officers with the San Diego Police Department arrive at the home of Sergeant Tony Elliott to inform his wife he had been shot in the head
Days later he was flown on December 23, 2023 to Craig Hospital in Colorado, one of the nation’s top neurological rehab centers.
Upon arrival, the Denver Police SWAT team stood at attention in salute – a rare and emotional show of solidarity for one of their own from across the country.
At Craig, doctors told Elliott he would likely leave in a wheelchair but such was his level of determination to overcome his injuries he walked out less than four weeks later.
‘It was like drinking from a fire hose,’ Elliott said. ‘They push you hard – walk on one foot, recite the alphabet, balance, everything. But I said yes to everything.
‘I pushed myself every day. They told me to take one step – the next day, I asked to do five. Instead, they said, ‘We’re climbing stairs today.’ So we did.’
Elliott spent time working to recover mobility and feeling in the left side of his body
At Craig, doctors told Elliott he would likely leave in a wheelchair but such was his level of determination to overcome his injuried he walked out less than four weeks later
His mission was to flood the brain with motion, activity, memory – anything to rebuild neural pathways before the window of opportunity closed.
‘I had to do as much as possible in six months, before the swelling went down. That’s the sweet spot for recovery.’
By January 16, 2024, Elliott was back in San Diego – standing, walking, holding his kids. But the recovery wasn’t over.
He entered a brain therapy outpatient program at Scripps to relearn how to write, plan, and organize.
His left leg remained numb. He struggled with brain fog. But he kept pushing.
‘Still feels like static, like a fuzzy TV screen. But I run on it anyway,’ he said referring to his leg.
Elliot is wheeled out on a stretcher while being transferred from Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla to an out-of-state hospital for specialized care on December 21, 2023
He told how the best therapy of all was wrestling with his toddlers on the floor of the family’s North County apartment every evening.
‘My wife brought the kids to Denver. After therapy, I’d come home to our little apartment, and they’d want to wrestle. So I wrestled with one arm. That was the best therapy.
‘That’s what healed me. Not just the rehab – the routine. The bedtime stories, the tickle fights, the diapers. That’s what made me fight.’
In September 2024, Elliott returned to work, initially first in a desk role with the SWAT unit. Then, just one week ago, he stunned his department again as he was back on patrol.
‘I’m not going to do it forever,’ he insists. ‘My wife, Laura, is sacrificing so much just to let me try. It’s hard on her. But I needed closure. I needed to know I could still do it.’
The first day back in the car was jarring.
‘I felt like I didn’t belong, like I’d forgotten everything. But by day two, it all came back. It was like I never left.’
For now, he’s back on graveyard shifts, checking boxes, closing cases, and proving the impossible is sometimes just a mindset.
Elliott says he doesn’t plan to stay forever – just long enough to prove he can. Then, he’ll find a role that’s safer for his family. Because while his job matters, his home is everything.
‘When I was dying, I wasn’t thinking about promotions. I was thinking about bedtime stories. That’s what matters.’
Elliott is seen returning to the the force while his wife, Laura, right, wipes away tears
Elliott told how the best therapy of all was wrestling with his toddlers on the floor of the family’s North County apartment every evening
The love of his family and two young boys helped bring Elliott back from the bring
Elliott has now begun to try his hand at public speaking, sharing his journey to motivate others.
His themes: resilience, mindset, never getting complacent, and always remembering what matters most.
‘Everyone preaches resilience,’ he said. ‘But unless you’ve really had to claw your way back from something, it’s just talk. I’ve lived it. I want to help others live through it too.
‘And if my kids grow up knowing daddy didn’t quit – that he fought to come back, for them – maybe that’ll mean something.
‘If I learned anything,’ he said, ‘it’s that family is everything. When I thought I was dying, I didn’t think about medals or jobs. I just wanted to tell my kids I love them. I just wanted to play with them one more time.’
