Court documents reveal man killed by Orange deputy had mental health issues

Court documents shed light on the metal health history of the man shot and killed by an Orange County sheriff’s deputy on Tuesday.

Eddie Humberto Segura, 40, had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and was a threat to others when he was not taking his medication, his sister told deputies, according to court records from a 2015 arrest.

Deputies went to Segura’s home on Fort Clinch Avenue in the Stonebridge subdivision off Goldenrod Road around 1 p.m. after his mother said he was assaulting her. Sheriff John Mina said deputies spent several minutes trying to talk to him before he picked up a bar stool and started attacking them.

A deputy shot Segura dead after a Taser didn’t work, Mina said. Two deputies suffered minor injuries.

Mina said deputies had flagged the house because Segura had a history of being violent toward them. Court records show deputies were called to his home in July 2015 when he hit his three-year-niece in the head.

When deputies got to the home, they said Segura refused to come out. They went inside and used gas to remove him from the bathroom, the arrest affidavit said. He fought deputies, including kicking a Taser out of one of their hands, the document said.

Segura was eventually handcuffed and taken to the Orange County Jail on charges of battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest with violence, according to records. Segura was found incompetent to proceed with the case and was taken to a Department of Children and Families facility in north Florida for treatment in February 2016.

“As indicated in the enclosed clinical summary, the treatment team for Mr. Segura has concluded that he continues to meet criteria for involuntary commitment but that he can be effectively treated in a less restrictive civil treatment facility within the Florida Department of Children and Families,” DCF wrote in a September 2016 letter to Orange Circuit Judge Robert Egan.

The letter says the plan was to transfer Segura to a facility in Orange County, although it does not say which one.

Segura was declared incompetent again in August and was set to have another competency hearing next month. It’s not clear when he was released from the mental health facility.

The deputies involved in Tuesday’s shooting are on paid administrative leave as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates. Mina said the incident was recorded by deputies’ body worn cameras, but a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson wouldn’t say when the video would be released.