Indian River County - Tuesday June 14, 2022: Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers Tuesday released dramatic body camera footage showing his Deputies firing the shots that wounded a teen armed with a gun who had just fled from the back seat of a car following a traffic stop.
View the body cam footage on the IRC Sheriff's Facebook page here > https://fb.watch/dEHkNKSgIg/. Viewer discretion is advised.
The teen has been identified as 19 year old Jamall Frederick of Fort Pierce. He was shot between four and six times, said Sheriff Flowers, and he remains in stable condition at Longwood Hospital in Vero Beach. Sheriff Flowers said Frederick is a convicted felon who was out on probation when Deputies stopped the vehicle he was in last Saturday night, July 11.
The traffic stop was conducted around 9 p.m. in the 3100 block of 45th Street of Gifford. There were four people inside the vehicle. Frederick was sitting in the back, on the passenger side of the car.
READ the WQCS initial story about last's Saturday's shooting incident here > https://www.wqcs.org/2022-06-13/teen-shot-and-wounded-by-irc-deputies-after-fleeing-from-arrest.
Deputies tracked down the vehicle which Sheriff Flowers said was involved in a "volley of shots" fired nearly 18 hours earlier, at 2 a.m. Saturday morning, in the 4500 block of 38th Avenue in Gifford. No one was injured in that incident.
"We're in the beginning stages of an active ongoing investigation," said Sheriff Flowers at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "Today we're releasing body camera footage in effort to be transparent. We're also releasing body cam footage to combat some of the false narratives that exist on social media.""
View Sheriff's Flowers Tuesday news conference on the IRC Sheriff Facebook page here > https://fb.watch/dEK0smeEbj/.
The body cam footage shows Deputies, with their handguns drawn, approaching the vehicle from behind. The faces of the deputies are blocked out.
"Hey, I think I got a firearm," says one Deputy who is shining a flashlight into the back seat where Fredrick was sitting. Another Deputy commands all occupants of the vehicle to roll their windows down and display their hands outside the vehicle.
"Do not touch that gun," shouts the first officer. "Can I call my Mom," cries out one of the passengers. "Don't move. Just keep your hands up," responds the other Deputy.
The occupants are told to unlock their doors, the Deputies begin to remove them from the vehicle, starting with Frederick. "Hey, you hear me," says a Deputy to Frederick. "I'm going to open this door, you keep your hands outside the window." As the door opens, the Deputy takes Frederick's right hand and says, "Step out, give me your hands." But Frederick's left hand appears to reach back for something, and then he dashes away from the car. The Deputies fire multiple shots at him as he flees.
Following the initial volley of shots, Frederick apparently fell to the ground, according to the captions in the body cam video. The caption states that as Deputies approached, they told Frederick to raise his hands. "Ignoring their orders," states the caption, "Frederick presents a firearm, stands up, and escapes into the residential neighborhood."
The body cam footage resumes. "Get your hands up," shouts a Deputy, and a second round of shots are heard. "Hold, hold," shout the Deputies. A K-9 Unit was eventually called to the scene and tracked Frederick down hiding in an enclosed porch of a nearby home.
On Saturday night Sheriff Flowers said that his Deputies had reported to him that the suspect (Frederick) had grabbed the gun when he fled from the vehicle, and that he was holding the gun in his hand as he ran away, and that he had turned and pointed the gun at officers as he fled.
In response to questions at the Tuesday afternoon news conference the Sheriff responded - "In this video do you see (Frederick) pointing the gun? No. There is nothing in the video that we're going to release that shows him pointing the gun (at the Deputies) ... I don't know what the deputies saw," acknowledged Sheriff Flowers.
All four Deputies involved were placed on paid administrative leave Saturday. "We still have to talk to those Deputies to see what they saw in the darkness," said the Sheriff. Because of the distance and the darkness you can't "see everything that happened," he said.
However, the Sheriff had no doubt that Frederick did have a gun in his left hand when he fled from the car. Frederick "chose to take that gun with him, he chose to arm himself," he said. "You see him in the video transitioning the gun from his left hand to his right hand. You see him turning back to face our deputies." "The first question," said Sheriff Flowers, "is why was the gun so important? Why did he need to take that gun with him."
The Sheriff was also asked whether the deputies were justified in shooting at a fleeing suspect. "Absolutely," he said. Frederick "has grabbed this gun aggressively ... he is running into the community where we've had shots fired, we've had a homicide the day before, where we know that this guy is up to no good ... absolutely, there's a scenario where it could be justified."
Two stolen guns were recovered, said Sheriff Flowers, "one which Jamall Frederick grabbed before the shooting incident occurred. The second was found inside of the car when we conducted a search warrant on Sunday morning." One of the guns was stolen from Vero, he said, the other was stolen from Fellemere.
"All of this, this entire incident, could have been avoided," said Sheriff Flowers, "had Jamall Frederick listened to the Deputies, their instructions to not touch the gun."
"This crew that we stopped this night, they were countywide burglars," said Sheriff Flowers. "We will not tolerate these known felons endangering our community."
A second person from the vehicle was also arrested, 18 year old Zbryius Jones.
