Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Deputies fatally shoot robbery suspect in Pompano Beach
Broward Sheriff ’s deputies fatally shot a robbery suspect following a brief chase in Pompano Beach, officials said Monday.
The incident took place just before 10:30 a.m. in the area of Northeast Fourth Avenue and East Atlantic Boulevard, shutting down both directions of Atlantic Boulevard for hours until the lanes reopened about 5:30 p.m.
The Sheriff’s Office did not identify the deputies or the suspect as of Monday evening.
Sheriff Gregory Tony told WPLG-Ch. 10 the suspect was involved in a robbery at a TD Bank branch in Oakland Park before the pursuit.
“The suspect fled and just recklessly was in and out of traffic all throughout Pompano area,” Tony told WSVN-Ch. 7 at the scene.
The man got out of the car and “presented a firearm towards our deputies,” Tony said at the scene. About four of them shot at the suspect.
“He fell back into the car, which was burning, and our deputies went in there, extracted him out of the car while it was on fire and actually tried to perform life-saving techniques to get him to survive,” Tony told reporters at the scene.
Tony, in a video shared by WTVJ-Ch. 6, said that the deputies shot the man “in between the door frame” of the car after he stepped out.
“He failed to comply, probably after about eight minutes or so of our deputies trying to get him to come out,” Tony told Ch. 6. “We also noticed that at some point, it appears he set the car on fire while he was inside.”
Rich Goines, who lives off of East Atlantic Boulevard, rode his scooter to a nearby Walgreens on Monday morning and saw a helicopter circling overhead. After entering the store, Goines said he saw an unmarked deputy’s car driving “at full speed” west in the lanes that head east.
“When I saw that, I knew it was something big,” Goines said. “You don’t normally see police cars driving in the opposite direction ...”
Goines said deputies began parking on East Atlantic Boulevard, and he watched the scene unfold from a 7-Eleven across the street. He heard deputies repeatedly shout at the driver over a speaker to exit the car with hands up, Goines said.
He saw flames and smoke billowing from the car, wrecked on the curb of the street. Deputies asked Goines and others who were standing in front of the gas station to go inside before he heard the shots.
“It’s very shocking to me and the people that were standing next to us,” he said.