FL - "Prankster" Shot, Killed By Off-Duty Officer

Jose said:
How many f-ing times does it need to be said that the idiot who is the subject of this story was not killed for ringing a doorberll? He was killed for assaulting a sheriff's deputy and trying to take his handgun.
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Yes, assuming the cop is telling the truth.
 
I think the mods should lock this thread and offer this pic to help me with my point:

fail10rc1.jpg
 
Jose said:
How many f-ing times does it need to be said that the idiot who is the subject of this story was not killed for ringing a doorberll? He was killed for assaulting a sheriff's deputy and trying to take his handgun.
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How many F-ing times does it need to be said that you have no clue whether that is the truth or not? And if, at this point, based on the lack of examination of evidence and the conflicting stories in the report, you can come to the conclusion that this man was killed for assaulting a sheriff's deputy and trying to take his handgun, then you are either a psychic or a moron. And I don't believe in psychics.
 
securityboy said:
As a matter of fact I am a former local president...

A "ring and run" would be a huge stretch to fit as a neighborhood dispute and/or personal quarrel, under any of the policy's/proceedure's I've ever looked at regarding similar "off duty" restrictions.


That is our job/life...from on duty every car stop "could be" a set up to off duty when the cook at the resturant I eat at might have been a former "client" and dump some decon in my order of soup...I am far from having a superman complex, but suggesting a police officer (or anyone else for that matter) should not investigate a suspicious "activity" on his property because it "might be a set up" is a little to paranoid for me...
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Well hearing this from a former union president or shop steward is not a surprise. Regardless of the union mantra if the Sheriff does not have his deputies back he wil not be Sheriff for long.
If the deputy had called for backup while in his cruiser investigating a suspicious "ring and run" it might not have seemed personal and would have fit his department policy.

Either the deputy thought it was a prank against him and pursued against his department policy or he thought it was something worse and took a significant risk by not calling it in and requesting backup.

Call it paranoid but someone did get shot and killed. Some of those department rules were put in place by the unions for their members safety not to screw with them.[hmmm]
 
I found the press release on the sheriff's website:

http://www.sarasotasheriff.org/NEWSRELEASES/10-42 Shooting Investigation.pdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Deputy-Involved Shooting
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a fatal shooting this morning that involved an off-duty deputy.
Deputy Carlos Verdoni was investigating a suspicious incident after two individuals rang the doorbell at his home in Venice around midnight, and later banged on his door just before 1:00 a.m.
Deputy Verdoni got in his marked patrol car to search for the subjects, one of whom he located in the 300 block of Lisbon Street. The subject initially complied with the deputy’s request to speak with him, and Deputy Verdoni called for backup.
The subject then became noncompliant, attacking the deputy and tackling him to the ground. The deputy landed on his back and hit his head on the pavement.Deputy Verdoni ordered the subject to stop resisting. The subject attempted to disarm Deputy Verdoni and the two struggled for the gun. Fearing for his life, the deputy fired two rounds, stopping the attack.
The subject, Tyler Spann, DOB 6/5/89, 2314 Kennedy Drive, Venice, was dead on the scene.
Deputy Verdoni is 33 years old and has been employed by the Sheriff’s Office since 2001. He is on routine paid administrative leave.
Date: 4/16/10
Released By: Wendy Rose
NR #: 10-42
THOMAS M. KNIGHT, SHERIFF
SARASOTA COUNTY SHERIFF’S MEDIA OFFICE
For more information contact: Wendy Rose, Community Affairs Manager Office 941.861.4927 • Cell 941.915.7644 Sarah Kenniff, Multimedia Coordinator Office 941.861.4005 • Cell 941.650.1315
www.SarasotaSheriff.org
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DickWanner said:
I'm less inclined now to believe it was a prank, but at the same time I don't think sandal-clad deputies should attempt to detain anyone with nothing more than a sidearm.
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He did call for backup.

With some LE agencies you're considered on duty 24/7. If you read through the recent arrest reports on the Sarasota Sheriff's Office website, you'll see that there's been a bunch of burglaries and robberies recently, some armed. There's also info that the agency will know that isn't made public; not in a sinister way, but just because when you're involved in the investigation of every crime in the county you'll have your ear to the ground in ways that others won't. If there's been a string of suspicious people pretending to work for ADT in the neighborhood asking folks "Do you have an alarm system?" [thinking] or other similar activity then they'd be on high alert. Details like this don't make the news most times.

goofycj7 said:
Stupid pranks by a neighbor would be both a neighborhood dispute and a personal quarrel, which this started out as until the kid went for the gun. But by that time the deputy had already violated the department policy.
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The news was mis-quoting department policy, because Amadou Diallo sells newspapers. A nieghborhood dispute is the same two people calling 911 on each other every day to get back at the other for calling 911 on them the day before, or something similar, clearly not this.

goofycj7 said:
I am sure the sheriff will support one of his own deputies if there is any doubt.
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[laugh]

goofycj7 said:
But the deputy would still would have walked right into a setup if it was someone who was after him. If there was one 5'3" 150 pound 20 year old drunk who was a problem imagine if it had been two 6'2" 210 pound men who planned on attacking the deputy?
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The deputy probably would have tried to detain them and shot them if his life was in danger, like happened here. How do we know that isn't what happened?

RI_John said:
No one here knows whether this unarmed 20 year old drunk tackled the cop, tried to get his gun or not. No one. But we all know cops don't just shoot for no reason. Even at 1a.m. in their flip-flops and shorts. Cops don't make mistakes or f**k up. No way.
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If the cop screwed the pooch I'd jump on him. Your thought process on this seems muddled to me, there is no video, we don't know that anything "egregious" happened.

RI_John said:
So MY natural inclination when I hear about someone unarmed getting shot is to be very critical and scrutinize the entire situation and wonder what might have really happened. My natural inclination is NOT to just trust whatever the authorities tell me without proof or other witnesses.
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He wasn't unarmed, he was trying to take the cop's gun.

goofycj7 said:
Regardless of the union mantra if the Sheriff does not have his deputies back he wil not be Sheriff for long.
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Sheriff's are elected in Florida, so it's not impossible for them to behave like other politicians and throw their people under the bus to save face.

goofycj7 said:
If the deputy had called for backup while in his cruiser investigating a suspicious "ring and run" it might not have seemed personal and would have fit his department policy.

Either the deputy thought it was a prank against him and pursued against his department policy or he thought it was something worse and took a significant risk by not calling it in and requesting backup.
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He did call for backup, it's in the link that I posted.

goofycj7 said:
Call it paranoid but someone did get shot and killed.
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I know. That deputy is probably sitting at home right now going over this again and again in his head...he was in a bad situation where he had to take a life. I don't comment on the situation lightly.

Something else for you to consider, in a recent study done by the FBI on felonious assaults on LEO's, they found out something that I find remarkably interesting. In many of the cases where suspects tried to kill the cops, they were getting arrested or investigated for petty crimes, and the amount of force that they resisted with didn't match the crime that they had committed. There's a lot of great info in that study that applies to this case, check it out if you have the time, it's a real eye opener, like how several cops in that study were attacked by "unarmed" criminals who shot the cop with their own gun.

I don't have any details or info on this other what's posted in this thread, but from what I can see this looks like it was a clean shoot.
 
Look what I just found here:


Suspicious Vehicles and Persons
During the most recent period in which statistics are available (1997‑2006), suspicious person calls led to the felonious deaths of more police officers than any other circumstance except ambushes (18.9 percent of the total), and were tied with unknown-risk traffic stops for second place in this grim statistic. Of the 562 officers feloniously killed during the period, 64 (11.4 percent) were killed investigating suspicious persons. For officers working alone, the percentage is even higher. Of the 291 unassisted officers feloniously killed during the period, 42 of them (16.2 percent) died while investigating suspicious persons.

These dismal statistics should not be surprising when we consider the fact that suspicious person calls are fraught with ambiguity. In most other high-risk situations, the officer is clearly aware of the risks, has some idea of what he is up against, and can justify the use of high-risk tactics. But most suspicious person calls must be handled in a lower-profile manner, and with very little information on the actual risks involved. The danger, when it exists, is often obscure or veiled in vague suspicion.

Nevertheless, suspicious person calls are often downplayed as routine. In many departments, only one officer is dispatched unless there is information to indicate that a specific risk exists. And even when backup is sent, it is not uncommon for officers to disregard their assist unit while still en route to the scene. Suspicious person calls must be taken as seriously as any other high-risk activity. Use backup, including Contact and Cover, be on your guard, and employ sound tactics to establish and maintain control of the situation.
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If the press release is accurate to the events that happened, then yes the deputy was justified in the shooting. I still think he made a bad choice by going after two suspects in sandals though [laugh]
 
DickWanner said:
If the press release is accurate to the events that happened, then yes the deputy was justified in the shooting. I still think he made a bad choice by going after two suspects in sandals though [laugh]
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Neither would I if I had the option, but county LEO's in FL have authority both on and off duty in the county that they work in. Depending on the circumstances, he may have felt that he had to. My neighborhood recently had several home invasion burglaries that didn't make the news, so I'd definitely pay more attention if this happened to me.

ETA:

There's 5-6 cops (state, county & local) with marked, take home cruisers parked in their driveways in my neighborhood too, that didn't stop the crimes from happening.
 
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Sheriff's are elected in Florida, so it's not impossible for them to behave like other politicians and throw their people under the bus to save face.
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Change "I am sure the sheriff will support one of his own deputies if there is any doubt." to "cover his ass" and you will probably agree with it. No Politician elected or appointed is going to open up a can of worms by inviting the local government, Media and union to attack him. If he had condemned the deputies actions it would hit the fan for the Sheriff, well even more so. Right now he is covering himself and the county.

He did call for backup, it's in the link that I posted.
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He called for backup after he knew it was a 20 year old drunk, and then had problems.

Your own post supports that he should have called for backup right away.
http://www.lawofficer.com/news-and-articles/articles/lom/0412/the_peter_soulis_incident.html
 
goofycj7 said:
Change "I am sure the sheriff will support one of his own deputies if there is any doubt." to "cover his ass" and you will probably agree with it. No Politician elected or appointed is going to open up a can of worms by inviting the local government, Media and union to attack him. If he had condemned the deputies actions it would hit the fan for the Sheriff, well even more so. Right now he is covering himself and the county.
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I disagree. Dept. brass/city politicans routinely hang cops out to dry, especially in use of force cases, like in the Malice Green case, or the Sean Bell shooting, to name some of the more widely known ones where cops were reported to have screwed up before any investigation had even been done. There's department politics and other things that come into play as well, but the short story is that smart cops use their own lawyers, not department lawyers, because the best interests of the agency don't always line up with the best interests of the cop.

goofycj7 said:
He called for backup after he knew it was a 20 year old drunk, and then had problems.

Your own post supports that he should have called for backup right away.
http://www.lawofficer.com/news-and-articles/articles/lom/0412/the_peter_soulis_incident.html
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Yes, he probably should have. But this happened at 1 a.m. on a Friday, which is when things get busy for the PD's as the bars are letting out, so he would have less priority for backup, which could easily mean that the nearest free deputy was 10-15 minutes away. If calls were stacked up, he might not have had any backup until he radioed to report that the kid was being combative/aggressive. He could have also radioed for them to start gently rolling units his way while he searched the neighborhood for the two guys (no sense in rushing backup if they're busy and he hasn't found anyone yet), but after he saw them and called out the window "Hey you, stop," then radioed "I found them, have my backup step it up." That would line up with what's in the press release.

http://www.sarasotasheriff.org/NEWSRELEASES/10-42 Shooting Investigation.pdf

Deputy Verdoni got in his marked patrol car to search for the subjects, one of whom he located in the 300 block of Lisbon Street. The subject initially complied with the deputy’s request to speak with him, and Deputy Verdoni called for backup.
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He also could have used a Nextel or a private dept. frequency to ask one of his co-workers for backup as soon as he got in the car so that they could start heading his way (and so that he didn't have to broadcast his home address on open radio channels), then "officially" called for backup over the main channel once he was out with them.

Press releases often lack specific info because not many details are available until the investigation is completed, and because most people wouldn't care about or understand many of the details anyway. Like I said before, based on the info we have this seems clean to me, FWIW.
 
I disagree. Dept. brass/city politicans routinely hang cops out to dry, especially in use of force cases, like in the Malice Green case, or the Sean Bell shooting, to name some of the more widely known ones where cops were reported to have screwed up before any investigation had even been done. There's department politics and other things that come into play as well, but the short story is that smart cops use their own lawyers, not department lawyers, because the best interests of the agency don't always line up with the best interests of the cop.
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Their best interests don't always line up, but it helps neither side if there is reasonable doubt. The officer has much more to lose but the Politician has his department look like hell. The Sean Bell case and Malice Green had race as a factor, I believe Al Sharpton was all over both from the start. If race is thrown in the mix the media and general public have already condemned the accused. Regardless if it is an officer or Duke Lacross players.

In this case the Sheriff had nothing to gain by throwing the Deputy under the bus. Besides having more to deal with he would have lost any support from his own department.

Sad that if it had not been a white 20 year old college student the deputy probably would have been condemned.

But there are cases of lieutenant supporting their direct reports, too far sometimes like the N.O. bridge shooting.
 
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I disagree. Dept. brass/city politicans routinely hang cops out to dry, especially in use of force cases, like in the Malice Green case, or the Sean Bell shooting, to name some of the more widely known ones where cops were reported to have screwed up before any investigation had even been done. There's department politics and other things that come into play as well, but the short story is that smart cops use their own lawyers, not department lawyers, because the best interests of the agency don't always line up with the best interests of the cop.
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The media hung those officers out to dry. What could the department Chief or Sheriff or local politician say to change that? It would make the investigation appear tainted, that the police and politicians were going to acquit the officers from the beginning. Even the unions can not really help in those instances.
I am not saying that I agree with it but blaming the Department chief/Sherriff for a media explosion that has already taken place?
The officers were already under the bus, the chief, the union and the entire Department couldn’t have pulled them out at that point. Rodney King even went to the federal level, not because of the department chief did or the local politicians but because of the liberal media. Those officers were sacrificed by the federal government because of the media.

The Chief/Sheriff is doing damage reduction at this point. One way or another reducing the public outcry helps the officer. You want to call it throwing the officers under the bus go ahead but don’t ignore your real enemy for a convenient one. If the media headline was cops arrest drunk crack addict who assaulted officers Rodney King would not have caused riots.
 
goofycj7 said:
Their best interests don't always line up, but it helps neither side if there is reasonable doubt. The officer has much more to lose but the Politician has his department look like hell. The Sean Bell case and Malice Green had race as a factor, I believe Al Sharpton was all over both from the start. If race is thrown in the mix the media and general public have already condemned the accused. Regardless if it is an officer or Duke Lacross players.

In this case the Sheriff had nothing to gain by throwing the Deputy under the bus. Besides having more to deal with he would have lost any support from his own department.
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I mentioned those two instances because they're more recognizable to people on a national level, but there are many cases that don't make much news where cops get strung up by their bosses when they didn't do anything wrong. Cases like CBP agents Compean & Ramos made some news because they got stuck with criminal charges and hard time in prison, but there's many other kinds of sanctions that a cop can recieve that don't involve the courts like that.

Even in 100% justified shootings, the cops involved get bombarded with phone calls at work & at home from people around the country calling them a killer/murderer/jack booted thug, have friends/relatives of the person they shot attack them and their family at their home [thinking], and get their shooting reported in news stories that cleverly don't say what they did was wrong, but leave people with the impression that something dirty happened, or that mangle the details when they "report" them which stirs up controversy. I can name (but I won't on a public forum) three different cops in Mass. who went through this stuff and more as the result of three separate clean shootings. In all three of those cases the agencies had those cop's backs and stood up for them, but there's many others where this doesn't happen.

There's also chiefs/sheriffs (like the well-known Joe Arpaio) who don't give a crap about support from their staff, or who want to give the impression that they're tough on dirty cops, so they pretend that the cops did something wrong when talking to the media even when they're clean.

goofycj7 said:
But there are cases of lieutenant supporting their direct reports, too far sometimes like the N.O. bridge shooting.
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I agree, and that's wrong & disguting too, but in a different way than what I was talking about above. The difference is that a department doing wrong in a case like the NOLA bridge shooting sells newspapers and people remember it because it gets brought to light. From what I've seen those dept. lies are much less common than the other kind, but they come out a lot more because the system works for the most part.

goofycj7 said:
I am not saying that I agree with it but blaming the Department chief/Sherriff for a media explosion that has already taken place?
The officers were already under the bus, the chief, the union and the entire Department couldn’t have pulled them out at that point.
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In both the Malice Green & Sean Bell incidents the media was told that the officers had done wrong and were being investigated before any details had even emerged. The media freaked that black felons were killed by cops (in some cases by other minority cops), but the one's in charge added fuel to the fire based on the media frenzy and nothing else.

Something similar happened in the LAPD shooting of Devin Brown, the "unarmed" kid who got shot while trying to kill a cop. The officer involved did no wrong, but got no support from his dept. (read some of those quotes from the statements to the media). However, the shooting was completely justified, and the DA's investigation into the shooting found that everything matched up, it was a clean shoot. Even still, after that shooting LAPD changed their department policy, saying that cops on their department aren't allowed to shoot at vehicles anymore unless the officer is in danger from an object other than the vehicle, further implying that the shoot was bad. [thinking]

This is not a rare event in the modern, PC world of police use of force.

goofycj7 said:
Rodney King even went to the federal level, not because of the department chief did or the local politicians but because of the liberal media. Those officers were sacrificed by the federal government because of the media.

The Chief/Sheriff is doing damage reduction at this point. One way or another reducing the public outcry helps the officer. You want to call it throwing the officers under the bus go ahead but don’t ignore your real enemy for a convenient one. If the media headline was cops arrest drunk crack addict who assaulted officers Rodney King would not have caused riots.
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The media is definitely an enemy when it comes to use of force issues (both police, civilian and military) IMO, even in the Rodney King case, which is a whole separate topic. But LAPD higher ups lied & covered things up in the Rodney King incident to make the officers look worse, and to throw them under the bus. The department also put rookie Susan Clemmer through the wringer when she refused to change her testimony regarding what happened that night.

The media does most honest cops and soldiers a disservice when it comes to many shootings, but believe me when I tell you that police agencies don't just rapidly form a thin blue line to protect one of their own when something like this happens.
 
Also didn't the Story State that The Officer got into his Patrol car so .. what sort of Thief would intentionally go up to a house with a Cop car in the front or Driveway and ring the bell and see if anyone were home?????
 

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