New details released on deadly clash
Records shed light on officer’s shooting, 21-hour standoff and deaths of 4 kids
Ciara López called police from a 7-Eleven. She got into a fight with her boyfriend, and he had beaten her, she said. She had already put her four children to bed, and they were still in the apartment with him.
When Orlando police arrived at the Westbrook Apartments late June 10 to try and talk to Gary Lindsey, Officer Kevin Valencia volunteered to take the lead.
“We are going to open the door, make announcements and have him step out, and then from there we’re going to do a search. So just stand by,” one officer said over the radio.
López gave police a key to the apartment, but it broke when they tried to use it. Valencia determined that was because Lindsey was on the other side, holding the lock — “He’s holding it, without a doubt, he’s holding it,” the officer told colleagues.
Valencia and another officer knocked loudly on the door, announcing themselves as police. Then, at the instruction of a sergeant, Valencia tried to kick the door open.
A first kick failed, as did a second.
Then, a gunshot from inside the apartment ripped through the door — striking Valencia in the head.
“Shots fired, shots fired … Officer down,” an officer said.
On Tuesday, the city of Orlando released hours of body camera footage from that night along with reports, radio transmissions and messages from Lindsey’s social media accounts that show some of what happened over the 21-hour standoff.
The standoff ended with Lindsey taking his own life after police say he shot and killed López’s four children — Irayan Pluth, 12; Lillia Pluth, 10; Aidan Lindsey, 6; and Dove Lindsey, 1 — who were found in their beds. Lindsey was Aidan and Dove’s father, and helping López raise Irayan and Lillia.
Valencia, who is married and has two young children, was critically injured and is still being treated at a medical center in Georgia.
Gary Lindsey was found in a closet with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had a holster with two gun magazines on his hip, the records show.
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Stephany determined that the bullets that killed the children were consistent with Lindsey’s handgun – not the rifle an officer used to return fire after Lindsey shot Valencia.
López is still struggling with the death of her children, said Walter F. Benenati, an attorney representing her family.
“As one can only imagine, this is an overwhelmingly difficult circumstance to have to endure and there could never be any words to describe how Ciara has had to survive with this void,” Benenati said Tuesday. “Her thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the officer’s family who also suffered a terrible loss.”
Beating led to 911 call
Valencia and Officer Emanuel Gonzalez met López at her apartment complex’s leasing office about 11:45 p.m. June 10, according to one of the reports.
She gave them the keys to her apartment and warned that Lindsey had a gun. Lindsey had threatened to shoot the children in the past, an officer said over the radio.
She also told officers that Lindsey would be “polite and eloquent” toward them, the report shows.
López told police the conflict between her and Lindsey began when her Suzuki SUV broke down on Colonial Drive. For reasons that aren’t clear in the report, Lindsey “sped off” in another SUV, leaving López and her daughter Dove alone in a shopping plaza parking lot.
López was angry, and told police she sent Lindsey “hateful” messages on Facebook.
“Always the same [expletive] you don’t want to listen to me … cant [expletive] finish talking to make sure what needs to be done,” López said, according to records of Lindsey’s Facebook messages. “Im who pays for the [expletive] trouble and tantrums.”
“The moment to truly show that love is when you turn on me,” she wrote.
Later, López said she borrowed her mother’s car to drive back to her apartment, where her three older children were alone with Lindsey. She picked up food from McDonalds on the way, then fed the kids and put them to bed.
López said she “flipped off” Lindsey twice, leading to an argument that became physical.
Lindsey dragged López by the hair into the master bedroom, then pulled her onto the bed, she said. He then stood on the bed and kicked López in the head about five times, leaving her dizzy.
He grabbed his cell phone and went to the living room to get his Playstation video game console, but then began ripping wires and cables out of the wall, which knocked out the internet. López told police she checked to make sure the children’s bedrooms were locked, then went to knock on her neighbors’ apartment door to seek help.
“You did this. Trash,” Lindsey wrote to her about 9 p.m.
Eventually, she went to a nearby 7-Eleven, where she called 911.
‘Gary please do the right thing’
Throughout the standoff, Lindsey’s friends reached out to him on Facebook and Instagram — as did police — asking him to come outside, give himself up and set the children free.
Jared Jimenez, an Osteen man who said he’d known Lindsey since elementary school, said he got a call through Facebook Messenger from Lindsey about 2:30 a.m. during the standoff. Lindsey was breathing heavily and said he had “f---ed up” and “was not going to go back to jail,” Jimenez told police.
Lindsey said he had “probably killed a cop.”
Police officers apparently tried to communicate with Lindsey around the same time through López’s Facebook account. Records show they sent repeated messages to ask about the children’s conditions. Lindsey said he wanted to speak with López.
“We understand that you want to talk to Ciara but there are certain things we need to discuss first,” police said about 2:30 a.m., according to records.
Lindsey insisted that his phone was freezing because of the “mass amount of calls” he was receiving. Police tried for several more hours to get Lindsey to take a cell phone they had left for him outside the door of the apartment. They suggested he send one of the children out to get it.
As police tried to get an update on the children’s conditions from Lindsey, a producer for WFTV-Channel 9 also contacted him through Facebook.
“You have time to chat?” the producer wrote. “[How] are the kids doing?”
“Told them to let me talk to Ciara Lopez and I would send the kids out and talk but the [sic] are being uncooperative,” Lindsey responded, “Its just a phone call since 3 am. Now 10:21. Lied and said she was there, then… Oh… well… she’s not ‘right’ here.”
Meanwhile, friends kept pushing him to surrender.
“Gary please do the right thing,” one friend wrote in an Instagram message. “Let them kids go and give yourself up peacefully. I’ve been your friend 20+ years and have never once steered you wrong. I know deep down this isn’t you, this is a mistake you’ve made. You can correct the situation.”
Another friend sent Lindsey a photo of Dove, the youngest, sitting on Lindsey’s shoulders.
“I really do appreciate you as a friend,” that friend wrote. “I totally understand what’s going on but deep in you there’s love for your babies please take care of then just released then everything will be ok after all brother.”
‘Your time is up’
At some point June 11, officers got a remote-controlled camera into the apartment to see what was happening, records show. As they explored the apartment, they saw one of the children had already died. It was 8:23 p.m.
At 10:18 p.m., officers decided to go into the secondfloor apartment. They breached the front door and shattered a window.
Inside, Lindsey and the four children were dead.
The apartment was a mess: broken bunk beds, tipped over dressers and shattered windows. Crime scene investigators found a series of handwritten phrases on blue-and-pink sticky notes: “Don’t go to sleep, you won’t wake up,” “Your time is up” and “You shouldn’t have done that.”
The report does not say who wrote the notes.
Police believe the children were killed early in the 21-hour standoff. They were found in bed, still wearing their pajamas. But though officers repeatedly asked Lindsey if the children were safe, he never acknowledged that they were already dead, records show.
“Told them I would send the kids out and come out peacefully if I could talk to Ciara,” Lindsey wrote in a Facebook message to a friend about 1 p.m. June 11. “They won’t.”
Stephany, the medical examiner, said autopsies showed the children died significantly earlier than Lindsey.
“That combined with the children being discovered in their beds wearing pajamas supports the theory that the children were killed around the time of their last meals,” the report said. If you are experiencing domestic abuse or know someone who is, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233 or Harbor House of Central Florida at 407-886-2856.