{"id":2071,"date":"2012-07-16T11:37:36","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T15:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2012-07-16T13:15:37","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T17:15:37","slug":"flawed-headline-%e2%80%9clake-county-deputies-kill-wrong-suspect%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=2071","title":{"rendered":"Flawed Headline: \u201cLake County Deputies Kill Wrong Suspect\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is an unfortunate set of circumstances.\u00a0 Lake County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies responded to a request for assistance from the Leesburg Police in locating an attempted murder suspect.\u00a0 The suspect, Jonathan Brown, and his motorcycle were spotted in the Blueberry Hills apartment complex at around 0130 hrs. yesterday.<\/p>\n

Not knowing where Brown was, deputies went to the apartment closest to the parked motorcycle.\u00a0 They knocked on the door without announcing that they were the police.\u00a0 Andrew Scott, the resident, opened the door and pointed a handgun at the deputies.\u00a0 A deputy shot and killed Scott.\u00a0 Brown was later found in an adjacent apartment in the same building.<\/p>\n

Blame is already being assigned in both directions.\u00a0 Of course the Media are questioning why the deputies would knock on the door early in the morning without saying they were law enforcement.\u00a0 Tip #1:\u00a0 When looking for a homicide suspect, discretion may be a tactical advantage that leads to an uneventful arrest.<\/p>\n

As to knocking on the “wrong door,” LCSO was likely quietly canvassing the building in an effort to find Brown or witnesses as to where he went.\u00a0 After all, we are expected to find the murder suspect and remove him from civilized society, if we have a good idea of where he is, which they did.\u00a0 This is part of our duty to protect innocents.<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, we knock on doors all the time in the middle of the night in response to complaints, to make all manner of assistance notifications to citizens, and to perform general investigative duties.\u00a0 It is our job.<\/p>\n

Lake County Sheriff\u2019s spokesman Lt. John Herrell said, \u201cThe bottom line is, you point a gun at a deputy sheriff or police officer, you’re going to get shot.\u201d\u00a0 This would be Tip #2.\u00a0 Even if it were not the police, is it prudent for a citizen to point the barrel of a gun at just anyone because they knock on your door in the wee hours?<\/p>\n

Tip #3:\u00a0 Threat identification is always key in an armed confrontation. The deputies definitely identified a threat in Scott pointing a gun at them.\u00a0 Unfortunately for him, Scott had erroneously identified his threat.\u00a0 Unless you factor in that Scott had drugs and paraphernalia in his apartment.\u00a0 He may have seen the armed law enforcement officers as a danger to his continued freedom.\u00a0 Or he may have just been negligent in targeting the cops.\u00a0 Either way, his decision cost him his life.<\/p>\n

This from local affiliate WESH:\u00a0 \u201cLake County Sheriff’s Office deputies shot and killed a man they assumed was an attempted murder suspect on Sunday, but they now know they shot the wrong man.\u201d\u00a0 They actually know they shot the right man, since he was the one pointing a gun at the uniformed sheriff\u2019s deputies.<\/p>\n

I hate it when the Media twist the circumstances for sensationalism.<\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an unfortunate set of circumstances.\u00a0 Lake County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies responded to a request for assistance from the Leesburg Police in locating an attempted murder suspect.\u00a0 The suspect, Jonathan Brown, and his motorcycle were spotted in the Blueberry Hills apartment complex at around 0130 hrs. yesterday. Not knowing where Brown was, deputies went to the apartment closest to the parked motorcycle.\u00a0 They knocked on the door without announcing that they were the police.\u00a0 Andrew Scott, the resident, opened the door and pointed a handgun at the deputies.\u00a0 A deputy shot and killed Scott.\u00a0 Brown was later found in an adjacent apartment in the same building. Blame is already … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[407,10],"tags":[406,405,408],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-street","tag-deputies-kill-wrong-suspect","tag-lake-county-sheriffs-office","tag-media-bias"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-xp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2092,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions\/2092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}