Police identify suspects, officers in fatal shooting

The morning after an undercover police officer fatally shot a man in southeast Orlando, blood still soaked the leaves on the ground below a makeshift memorial.

The small memorial — a red heart-shaped balloon, a red stuffed bear and a bouquet of multicolored daisies attached to a chain-link fence — and fresh graffiti promised that 37-year-old Izzy Colon would always be missed. Those were the only signs of Wednesday night’s deadly shooting at the Palmas Altas apartment complex.

Caleb Milligan was home at the time of the shooting. He has lived at the apartment complex for about two years. He said he knew Colon by the nickname “Boston.”

“It seemed like fireworks,” Milligan said. “I heard six shots at first. They just kept going. Then three seconds later, I heard six more shots.”

Milligan said his neighborhood, consisting of mostly young people and small families, is usually quiet, and these kinds of incidents were uncommon. But now that someone he knows was killed by a police officer, he said he’s even more wary of cops.

“I don’t want to go outside,” Milligan said. “I don’t want to look suspicious.”

The officers involved in Wednesday’s shooting were Detectives Amanda White, who was hired in 2009, and Yong Hall, hired in 2007. Both officers joined the drug unit last year.

Another man, 34-year-old Ricardo Caban, was arrested after the shooting. He is facing charges of possessing a firearm and recklessly dis-

playing a firearm.

Police say the two officers were working an undercover drug detail about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Palmas Altas apartment complex. They were not dressed in their Orlando Police Department uniforms.

As they were walking through a breezeway at the apartment complex, the officers heard gunfire. They took cover behind cars in the parking lot, and moments later, they saw Caban and Colon walking toward them.

Police say when White and Hall confronted them, Caban immediately lay on the ground, dropped his gun and surrendered. Colon “refused to surrender and his actions caused Detective Hall to fire his weapon,” Caban’s arrest report said.

The report did not detail what kind of action caused Hall to shoot and kill Colon. The detectives were not at the apartment complex to investigate Caban or Colon, police said.

According to the report, Caban had a history of domestic violence and was

“It seemed like fireworks. I heard six shots at first. They just kept going. Then three seconds later, I heard six more shots.”

barred from possessing firearms. Both he and Colon had guns, police say.

It’s not clear if one or both of the men were shooting before they were confronted by the detectives.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement responded to the shooting. Both Hall and White were placed on paid administrative leave after the shooting.

This is the first shooting involving an Orlando police officer this year. In 2014, OPD had eight police-involved shootings, three of which were fatal.