This happened just 1 week later in the same town, by the same Sheriff's Dept:Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan called the shooting by two deputies of an unarmed 60-year-old man outside a car in his own driveway early Saturday “a tragedy” and said it’s reasonable to ask how the call went “so horribly bad.”
Morgan said that one major reason was that Roy Middleton, whom he referred to as a suspect and a victim, did not immediately comply with officers’ instructions to put up his hands as they approached.
“If we rolled on the scene and Mr. Middleton had been compliant and Mr. Middleton had followed all directions of the law enforcement officers, I can give you with a 99.9 percent of assurance that this shooting would not have occurred,” the sheriff said. “But when an individual, a suspect, or victim in this case, is not compliant, then the officers react to that.”
Morgan’s statement contradicts what Middleton told the News Journal during an interview from his Baptist Hospital bed on Saturday. He’s recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg, was listed in good condition Monday and believes he may be released Wednesday.
He said he had been rummaging in his mother’s car for a cigarette but backed out of the car with his hands raised when the deputies came upon him. He said they immediately opened fire when he turned to face them.
“It was like a firing squad,” he said. “Bullets were flying everywhere.”
'Officer anxiety'
Until Morgan’s news conference Monday afternoon, the Sheriff’s Office had offered only a one-paragraph summary of what occurred around 2:40 a.m. at the home on Shadow Lawn Drive in Warrington.
Morgan called the news conference as the shooting garnered national attention. Thousands of comments have been posted on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, and many have lambasted the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and Florida in general.
Morgan identified the officers who fired an estimated 15 rounds combined as Deputy Jeremiah Meeks, a second-year officer, and Sgt. Matthew White, a 15-year veteran and a field training officer. Deputy Wayne Charles Wright arrived as back-up but did not fire any shots.
The sheriff attributed the large number of shots fired to “officer anxiety” prompted by fear that the suspect could shoot them.
Meeks fired first from his 40-caliber Glock, Morgan said.
White, who was to Meeks’ right, could not tell if the suspect was shooting back “so as a back-up he also fired,” the sheriff said.
Meeks and White have been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, as is standard in officer-involved shootings.
The case then will be referred to the State Attorney’s Office for a decision on whether the officers should face criminal charges.
The officers have not been involved in excessive force complaints in the past, Morgan said.
911 call
The two deputies responded to a 911 call from Middleton’s neighbor who, standing nearby, reported that a black man was in his neighbor’s four-door car and trying to hotwire it.
“He keeps ducking down underneath the dashboard, trying to reach for something,” the neighbor, speaking calmly, said in the call that Morgan played at the news conference.
At one point, the dispatcher asked the caller if the suspect had noticed him.
“No ... this is crazy,” the caller replied. “I’m standing out here in the middle of the yard talking on the phone and he’s hardly even noticed me.”
Within four minutes, Meeks and White arrived on scene.
Morgan said the deputies reported that they directed Middleton to show his hands and exit the Lincoln Town Car. However, Middleton, who was seated in the car, responded by sticking one hand out of the car window and then withdrawing it, the sheriff said.
They again instructed Middleton to show his hands, and he responded by opening the car door and making a movement to exit the car before lunging back inside, the sheriff reported. As the officers continued to command him out of the vehicle, he exited the vehicle in “a lunging motion and very quickly,” Morgan said.
Morgan said Middleton spun toward the officers with what appeared to be a metallic object in one hand and his other hand concealed behind his back.
Middleton was in a darkened area, the sheriff said. However, a law enforcement source noted that at least one deputy was shining a flashlight on Middleton.
The sheriff said the fact that Middleton had failed to comply with instructions, that he was holding an object and that the hand behind his back could have been holding a gun prompted Meeks, followed by White, to open fire.
“We had at that time a suspect who we believed to be a suspect who was noncompliant with the officer’s directions,” Morgan said. “The officer feared that he had a weapon in his hand and he fired.”
Morgan said the object in Middleton’s hand and another object were later collected by officers. He refused to say what they were.
“Two objects have been taken into the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for evidence for further testing to determine which one of these objects was the one Mr. Middleton had in his hand,” he said.
However, Middleton’s mother, Ceola Walker, said her son told her he had a key set with a small flashlight attached in his hand. A law enforcement source said the other object was a steel pry bar.
No joke
Middleton, in the interview with the News Journal, said he did not immediately realize, as he searched for the cigarette, that deputies had arrived.
He said he initially believed it was a neighbor playing a joke on him with a flashlight. When he realized deputies were there, he immediately complied with their instructions, he said.
He suffered shattered bones in his left thigh that, according to his family, will require the insertion of a metal rod.
Middleton’s family said 17 shell cases were found in the carport.
Middleton has been retired on disability for a number of years from his job as a Coca-Cola Co. factory worker. He suffers from a painful back.
Morgan said he did not believe that officer training was an issue in the shooting.
“As much as we are trained and as much as officers — which have Type A personalities — like to say we are in control, we are not,” he said. “... If you don’t comply and you attempt to flee or you’re rummaging around in the interior of your car, and officers are asking you to show your hands, we now have an escalation of a situation that becomes very dangerous, very quickly.”
I guess the moral of the story is that in order to not get shot by the police, you should always try as hard as you can to be white (and not a dog). Being law-abiding citizens only goes so far...Two deputies remain on administrative duty and many questions still are unanswered three days after Escambia County sheriff’s deputies entered a Warrington couple’s home without a search warrant and shot the couple’s two dogs, resulting in one of them being euthanized.
The Sheriff’s Office refused Wednesday to elaborate on what led deputies to climb into a window while looking for a suspect, enter the home, roust the residents from bed, handcuff them and shoot the two dogs.
“There is both a criminal and an administrative investigation ongoing,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Sena Maddison wrote in an email Wednesday.
“More details will be available pending the conclusion of both the criminal and administrative investigation. But not before that time.”
The deputies went into the home of Travis Nicholas, 22, and Cristina Moses, 32, on Flynn Drive on Sunday night in search of a suspect involved in an armed disturbance that occurred earlier on the same street, a sheriff’s report released Tuesday said.
Earlier in the evening, Wayde Morris, 22, was arrested on a charge of aggravated assault after allegedly getting into an argument with his ex-girlfriend and her father and approaching them with a baseball bat and machete.
But several witnesses also reported that another man pointed a gun at several people involved in the earlier disturbance, and one witness identified the man as “Travis,” according to an incident report.
In a 911 dispatch record from the same night and address, a man is heard telling the dispatcher, “This little punk down the road has got a gun pointed at me, my daughter and my roommate.”
Neither Nicholas nor Moses had been charged as of Wednesday, and Nicholas denied owning a gun or making threats.
The couple said six deputies entered their home, but it was only one officer who fired shots at their dogs.
How many came in the window is not clear.
Legal entry?
Whether the deputies could legally enter the home is in question.
Under the law, officers must either obtain a search warrant or must identify emergency factors that make a warrantless entry necessary, such as probable cause to think people are in imminent danger, evidence faces immediate destruction or a suspect will escape.
The sheriff’s news release Tuesday said, “Deputies entered the house through the open widow in an effort to locate the suspect and to assure the safety of the occupants.”
Moses disputed that account, saying the window was not open because the air conditioning was on.
She said the officer who fired the shots was Deputy Mikel Anthony Lee.
Lee’s name is listed as the reporting officer on a sheriff’s report on which Nicholas is listed as the suspect. However, the Sheriff’s Office redacted the entire narrative of the report, saying it is not a public record.
Maddison declined to confirm if Lee was the deputy who fired the shots or give any further details about the deputies involved.
No video
Nicholas and Moses said they were sleeping in their bedroom with the two dogs with the door closed when deputies arrived.
Deputies reported that they knocked on the door, but the couple said they didn’t hear anything until the deputies approached their door and the dogs began barking.
“I opened the door, and there were six police officers pointing guns at me and flashlights, saying ‘Show me your hands. Get on the ground,’ ” Moses said Tuesday.
She said she and her fiance had been dragged to the hallway and the dogs were in the bedroom when the single deputy returned to the bedroom and shot the dogs.
Deputies later took the dogs to a veterinary hospital. One was euthanized the next morning; one is recovering at home with a bullet still lodged under his lung.
A sheriff’s report states that there is no video evidence of the incident, and the Sheriff’s Office has declined to provide a reason.
A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the agency is not investigating the case at this point.
