Deputies from the Broward Sheriff's Office shot and killed a man in Davie, Florida, late on Monday, in an incident that authorities say began as an attempted arrest and ended with the suspect dead in a busy commercial area. According to the sheriff's office, the man was armed and repeatedly refused orders to put down his weapon before deputies opened fire.
What started as an attempt to take the man into custody at a Wawa convenience store quickly escalated into a sprawling scene, with the suspect ending up dead outside a neighbouring McDonald's. The Broward Sheriff's Office said its fugitive and gang unit had led the operation, and that the man who was killed had been wanted for fleeing from police, with DNA samples linking him to other cases.
Sheriff Gregory Tony, who addressed reporters at the scene, said his deputies had been trying to arrest the man when he took off again with a gun in his hand. According to the sheriff, officers issued a multitude of commands for the man to let go of the firearm, and body-worn camera footage showed them spending more than a minute and fifteen seconds attempting to get him to drop it before the shooting.
The scale of the response was considerable. The sheriff's office said six deputies and one Plantation police officer were in the area for the planned arrest. One witness, who did not want to be identified, described hearing around twenty shots from what sounded like at least two different guns, along with a heavy law enforcement presence that included a helicopter circling overhead.
The aftermath stretched across several blocks along Sterling Road, with investigators focusing on a number of locations including a white car, the Wawa and the McDonald's. Residents and onlookers stood around the cordon for as long as two hours waiting to learn more about what had happened, with one saying they had simply been hoping that no one else had been hurt.
Sheriff Tony said no bystanders were injured in the shooting and that his deputies came away with only minor cuts and scrapes. The sheriff's office added that it was still working to establish whether the suspect had fired any shots at the deputies during the confrontation, an issue that investigators were expected to examine closely as part of their review.
The Broward Sheriff's Office said it would not release the identity of the man who was killed until his family had been properly notified. The agency said it was investigating the death as a homicide, while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would carry out a separate inquiry into the shots fired by the officers, a standard division of responsibility in cases involving the use of deadly force by police.