Experts say cops should have rushed to stop intruder

70-year-old left to fend off man pounding on door

The community’s outcry was swift and passionate when a 70-year-old disabled man shared the nightmare he faced at his home: He kept begging deputies to come stop a stranger who kept pounding on his front door, trying to shatter the glass.

But despite the frightened man’s pleas to 911 for help, deputies wouldn’t rush over to end the ordeal. The homeowner, armed with a gun, considered shooting the man.

Just as alarming to him was how Broward sheriff ’s deputies had responded to his Tamarac neighborhood, but wouldn’t near his door.

Weeks later, the Broward Sheriff’s Office still hasn’t answered many questions surrounding the encounter. The Tamarac homeowner, Bill Norkunas, says he still has no idea why the man tried to break down his door on Nov. 7 or why the deputies failed him.

Law enforcement experts told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday that the officers should’ve done more to stop the stranger, later identified as 23-year-old Timothy Johnson of Fort Lauderdale — for everyone’s safety.

The deputies may have been trying to show restraint by not racing in with guns drawn on the stranger, an unarmed man. But the homeowner himself was contemplating shooting Johnson, and the chance loomed that he would decide to use deadly force, the experts say.

“This is not the way it’s done,” said George Kirkham, a f ormer police officer and professor at Florida State University who specializes in studying police procedures. “You don’t delay, sit back and see what’s going to happen. If he breaks down the door, one or two people can be injured. It would have been a good shoot for the person inside.”

Kirkham called t he Sheriff’s Office’s response

“outrageous.”

Joseph Guida, a former New York City Police detective and expert witness with the police consulting firm NYPDTruth.com, questioned why deputies didn’t come closer to help Norkunas. Had deputies responded to the house, they would’ve had the chance to arrest Johnson without shooting him. “That’s what your job is, as a police officer. You have a 911 caller asking for help. You want to get there. Obviously you don’t want the homeowner to shoot the intruder,” either.

“Now you’re shifting the burden on the elderly homeowner,” Guida said.

The Sun Sentinel first reported on the case of Norkunas, a childhood polio survivor, who was left to fend for himself when a possible intruder tried to get into his home on a cul-de-sac while, according to witnesses, deputies stayed down the street and around a corner, some 500 yards away. Norkunas and his neighbors flooded the 911 emergency communications system begging for help for almost 15 minutes.

Eventually, the suspect walked over to the deputies and surrendered.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office hasn’t discussed the case with the Sun Sentinel, not yet answering questions about why none of the many deputies who responded didn’t approach Johnson. It also hasn’t answered what it would take for deputies to have needed to approach Johnson, or what has resulted from the episode at the Sheriff ’s Office.

During a radio show appearance Wednesday, Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony acknowledged the Sheriff’s Office could have responded faster, but defended the agency. The sheriff didn’t specifically mention the Black Lives Matter movement — a massive calling across the country to hold law enforcement accountable when there are other options to shooting or killing unarmed Black people. But Tony suggested that approaching the man at Norkunas’ door, who is Black, could have had a dire outcome for the community.

“We just cannot afford to kill an unarmed Black man in this country without it having a ripple effect in this community,” Tony told NewsRadio 610 WIOD. “So we can do better, we can move faster but we also have to be precise, and make sure we are not jeopardizing the entire community like this call could have done.”

The law enforcement experts say time was crucial — with every second posing the risk for either Norkunas or Johnson to be harmed. The minutes ticked by as Norkunas’ door was being smashed in Tamarac Lakes, an eastern neighborhood that borders Oakland Park and Fort Lauderdale.

At any moment, the suspect could have broken in and overpowered the elderly and disabled homeowner in his house, Guida said.

“That easily could have happened,” he said. The stranger “was breaking into the house for a reason. He was committing a crime.”

Philip Sweeting, a retired deputy chief from the Boca Raton Police Department, said at the very least, someone in charge that night at the Sheriff ’s Office should have sent two deputies to Norkunas’ door.

He, too, said he can’t understand what the deputies were waiting for and questioned if any lessons have been learned since the 2018 Parkland massacre, where eight deputies from the Sheriff’s Office didn’t rush in to stop the threat, as a former student shot 34 people, killing 17 of them at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“Someone should have responded to the threat,” Sweeting said.

He said police perimeters — in which officers converge on an area — have their place and that is to prevent an assailant’s escape. But he said any number of things could have happened if the man successfully got inside Norkunas’ home: He could have been shot or it could have turned into a hostage situation.

Sweeting said he believes the Sheriff ’s Office had a duty to protect, given Norkunas’ pleas for help. Sweeting said it was no different than if a police officer were facing imminent danger and got on the radio calling for help.

“You have to go and confront the bad guy,” Sweeting said. “This was an in-progress call. You don’t sit around and wait.”

He said most in law enforcement can’t wait for calls such as Norkunas’ where they can jump into action and stop something bad from happening.

“Police live for these calls,” he said, calling it “bizarre” that deputies didn’t stop Johnson.

In Tamarac, some public officials said they were satisfied with the answers they got from the Sheriff ’s Office, saying the end result worked out well for everybody.

“The police did not fail him — they were there,” Mayor Michelle Gomez said of the Sheriff ’s Office, saying she was shown police maps. “They were doing what they had to do. I can’t comment on their procedures — it’s not my place. But people need to know [the Broward Sheriff ’s Office] was there.”

She said the victim contributed to the successful outcome by how he had used hurricane-impact glass on his front door, as well as equipping his home with video surveillance, and staying calm. The man pounding on his door wasn’t able to enter by breaking through the glass.

Tamarac City Manager Michael Cernech said he was told about the incident immediately by the Sheriff ’s Office and spoke to them “repeatedly.”

“We had a full sit down and accounting” and were assured they followed their training “by the book,” Cernech said.

The suspect “was walking around in front of the house, side of the house, nobody is sure what this guy is doing — but they knew he didn’t have a gun — and five minutes had gone by before the man broke the glass,” Cernech said.

When the suspect was arrested and the Sheriff’s Office asked him what he was doing, he said he was cold, Cernech said.

“There had been pouring down torrential rain that night. He was soaking wet. He was looking for a car or somebody’s house to get in,” Cernech said.

“I understand people’s concern about the response time and we’ve addressed that internally — what happened, why did it happen, what are we doing to do differently? Did the sergeant responsible follow his training, did he follow protocol? The answer was yes. And the peaceful arrest of someone is a good outcome. The suspect wasn’t injured, the victim wasn’t injured and no police officers were injured,” he said.

Details of those internal discussions haven’t been released publicly.

“It isn’t easy to be a police officer these days. When they respond to situations, there’s a lot expected of them these days and they have to take all of that into account. It is a daunting task for law enforcement to do their jobs in a safe and compassionate way at this point,” Cernech said.

“We could have had another unarmed Black man shot in the street. But they didn’t do that. We got a peaceful arrest,” Cernech said.

“The police were there, they weren’t at the front door, but they were literally right up the street. They could have charged in, which is what people want to see. They want to see law enforcement charging and that’s not what they did. They ascertained the facts in real time, when they realized they were dealing with someone unarmed, they were able to de-escalate the situation and take the suspect into custody.”

But Tamarac City Commissioner Mike Gelin said he reached out to the sheriff to ask questions. He said he’s saddened by what happened, and will demand answers.

“Their job is to protect us, their job is to respond to calls. If it’s not being done, that’s a problem. I believe in accountability,” Gelin said.

Norkunas