NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
July 22, 2008
Contact: Michele Nicholson
Public Information Officer
(850) 651-7420
ONE DEPUTY, ONE SUSPECT DEAD IN STAND-OFF
An Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Deputy died this morning after the
unit’s Special Response Team entered a home on Plymouth Avenue in Fort Walton
Beach. The subject inside the house, who had threatened to shoot law enforcement
officers, died at the scene.
Officers had been dealing with the subject since late Monday afternoon
after serving an ex-parte order, a court order for involuntary examination under
the Baker Act. The man was taken to the Bridgeway Center, but later transported
to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center. He left the hospital but was picked up
again by law enforcement. He kicked out the window of a patrol car. Deputies
took him back to the hospital but he escaped again.
Early Tuesday morning, deputies learned from a citizen that the subject had
apparently barricaded himself in the Plymouth Avenue home with a shotgun. The
Special Response Team and Crisis Negotiation Unit attempted to talk him out
around 6 a.m. After getting no response, the unit entered the house. The subject
shot a deputy who later was pronounced dead at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center.
Deputies returned fire and the subject died at the scene.
The
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office is mobilizing all its resources to deal with
this tragedy.
A news conference will take place at one p.m. at the Sheriff’s
Administration Building on 2nd Avenue in Shalimar, directly behind
the McDonald’s.
Further information will be placed on the agency’s web-site as it becomes
available. That web site is
www.sheriff-okaloosa.org.