Deadly dilemma cops face
For four minutes on Tuesday night, Florida deputies pleaded with a suspect at gunpoint to just put his hands up before they had to use deadly force, a video shows — and experts said incidents like this are evidence of the life-and-death challenges cops face every day.
Dylan Ray Scott — who earlier this year wrote a note to his mom saying he wanted to “die via Suicide by Cop” — was killed in Riverview during the dramatic standoff with police, who were there to arrest him on warrants for grand theft and resisting arrest.
“No matter what videos like these show, there will still be people who will just call him a ‘killer cop,’ ” said Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former NYPD officer and Queens prosecutor, referring to one of the deputies who opened fire.
O’Donnell added that it “underscores how uninformed” the debate on police shootings has become. Especially in this unforgiving climate, officers like this just get unfairly branded, and even 10 years from now, it will be used against them if they are ever again made to use deadly force.”
Police body-camera footage shows Scott racing away from a deputy who had approached him in a McDonald’s parking lot, coming to a halt only when his pickup is T-boned by minivan.
As officers run up, he repeatedly warns that he has a gun in his waistband and ignores the deputies as they repeatedly beg him not to make them shoot him.
“C’mon, man. It’s not worth it,” the initial officer, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Deputy Timothy Miskell, pleads as he points his service handgun and flashlight at the 27year-old suspect, whose long rap sheet included a history of attacking cops.
“We do not take anything personally and I do not want to shoot you, but if you don’t show me your hands, that’s what’s gonna happen,” the deputy warns him.
“Put your hands up. Please don’t make me do this.
“You are gonna die right there in that passenger seat if you don’t show me your hands,” Miskell says, offering to get him help.
“The warrants that you have right now, you’ll get a bond. But if you make a bad decision right now, it could cost your life.
“And I’m begging you to not make that choice . . . C’mon, man, please don’t.”
Throughout the exchange, other officers around Miskell can be heard crying out for Scott to hold up his hands and not reach for the gun he said he had.
“You’ll be out of jail tomorrow, man. Just show us your hands,” one calls out.
Miskell tells Scott, “We’re good” — before the suspect suddenly lunges and a volley of shots from the officers is heard.
Scott was transported to Tampa General Hospital, where he died, the sheriff’s office said.
The driver in the minivan that T-boned him was also taken to a hospital, complaining of chest pains. A gun was not found on Scott or in his pickup despite his claims to have one, police.
Miskell and three other officers — Sgt. Michael Hannaford, Cpl. Steven Schneider and Deputy Devin Wooden — were all placed on administrative leave, which their boss stressed was purely protocol.
“These deputies did a textbook job of trying to get this suspect to surrender himself,” Sheriff Chad Chronister said.
“They pleaded with him to show his hands, stopping short of begging him not to reach for the firearm he repeatedly said he had. I am thankful that none of our deputies were hurt.”
Scott’s rap sheet included arrests for burglary, drug possession and a slew of crimes against cops, among them resisting an officer with violence, battery on a law-enforcement officer, and fleeing and attempting to elude police.