Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
New 911 calls give more details on police-involved shooting in Hollywood
HOLLYWOOD — The father of a man shot by Hollywood officers 10 days ago said Thursday that police have still not allowed him to visit his son in the hospital nor provide details on his condition.
Meanwhile, new 911 calls released to the South Florida Sun Sentinel late Wednesday provided more clues to what led to the shooting of Roman Ivnitski on the night of Oct. 12.
In the two recordings, a caller told a 911 operator that a man was waving a gun near Hollywood Beach.
“I see a guy in a white car waving a gun, or what looks like a gun,” the caller said. “It’s a 4-door car and he has his hazard [lights] on.”
A man on a bicycle had told officers that someone in a white car pointed a gun at him near the corner of Scott Street and N. Surf Road, according to a police report, but it was not clear if the bicyclist was the one making the 911 calls.
The same person made a second 911 call after the first officer arrived at the scene.
“The guy is lying on the ground in back of the car with a gun and the cop is trying to get him to relinquish his gun,” the caller said. “You need backup for this cop.”
“We called for backup,” the operator answered. “We appreciate your helping.”
At some point after the second call, shots were fired. Ivnitski was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital in critical condition, police said at the time.
Ivnitski’s father, Dmitri Ivnitski, said he had been searching for his son for two days and only found out about the shooting when he was reached by a Sun Sentinel reporter.
He tried to visit his son Oct. 15 but the hospital would not let him in.
“I know zero, nothing about my son,” he said Thursday. “I don’t know how he feels, I know zero.”
Dmitri Ivnitski called the Hollywood police detective bureau and was told his son was in stable condition.
“What means stable condition? I don’t know,” he said.
He has been trying to make sense of his son’s behavior since Roman moved in with him about three years ago. He said his son developed a drinking problem since his marriage broke up eight years earlier, but he went to a rehabilitation center to try to conquer it.
Dmitri Ivnitski confirmed that his son owned a gun but he did not know why. When he first found the gun, Dmitri Ivnitski said he checked it out and determined it was not real.
“This is a fake gun,” he said “It looks like really real but it’s not with bullets.”
Police confiscated the gun and the white car from the scene of the shooting.
Hollywood police are not commenting on the investigation, which is being handled by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.