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From the Pensacola News Journal (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/062803/Local/ST001.shtml):
Shooting baffles many
Nude man could have died from cut
Brett Norman
@PensacolaNewsJournal.com
The nude man shot Thursday night by Escambia County deputies was yelling incomprehensibly, praying in the middle of a busy thoroughfare and pleading for help in a bizarre chain of events leading to his death, witnesses said.
But a bullet from a deputy's gun is not what killed David Sean Lewandowski, 26, the District 1 Medical Examiner's Office reported Friday. The reportedly shy, red-haired man cut his arm when he punched through a window of a Cerny Road home, severing one branch of a major artery.
Dr. Andi Minyard said Lewandowski might have bled to death from that cut, but she will not finalize the findings until she receives toxicology results.
The Lewandowski case is the second deputy-involved shooting the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate in Escambia County in nearly two weeks. Sheriff Ron McNesby declined Friday to comment on either case, saying he does not want to influence the FDLE's investigation.
On June 16, Lathern Broughton, 64, was shot and killed after firing on a Special Weapons and Tactics squad raiding the Bullard Avenue home in which he barricaded himself for 2 hours.
However, questions remain, despite the medical examiner's report that the gunshot wound in Leandowski's arm did not kill him. Among those questions: Why was a man - who was last seen by civilian witnesses nude, unarmed and severely bleeding - shot?
Lewandowski's father, Tom Lewandowski, wants answers.
"Something's definitely wrong. My son shouldn't have died, period," he said. "He didn't deserve to die like this. Nobody does. Why didn't they help him?"
Another question is what prompted Lewandowski's apparent breakdown. His father said his son had no history of drug use or mental illness other than depression.
Dorothy McPhaul, who had a heated exchange with Lewandowski as he was trying to break into her home, has her own idea.
"I sometimes think the guy was ready to die," she said. "He came into the world naked and went out the same way, and he was talking about God. I don't know. But it seems like he was ready."
Strange behavior
Danny Crase agrees.
"There are just some people who aren't meant long for this world," he said.
Crase saw Lewandowski spiral into madness at Trisha's One Stop, the Blue Angel Parkway convenience store where Crase's sister - Tina Michelle Little - is a clerk.
Crase watched as the man swept a rack clean of its loaves of bread, sexually harassed an elderly woman and muttered feverishly about hydrogen and atom bombs and how they were going to kill everyone.
"They're trying to kill us," Crase recalls Lewandowski saying. "Can you give me a ride to Mexico, man? I've got to get out of here."
Little called deputies. Crase chased Lewandowski from the store and away from his pickup, which was parked next to a gas pump. Crase said Lewandowski offered him his IDs - "You can have everything!" - and ran south on Blue Angel Parkway, stripping as he ran.
Lewandowski was running in and out of traffic, clad only in his underwear, which was falling down, Crase said. He alternated between screaming and making obscene gestures at passing vehicles to kneeling in the middle of the road, hands cupped and outstretched, apparently in prayer, Crase said.
"I've never seen anyone so off his mind," he said.
Two female deputies arrived, one a K-9 officer, as Crase watched Lewandowski disappear across the street and down a hill into a clay pit.
On the other side of the pit, McPhaul, who had moved into to her newly built home just a week ago, was sifting through a basket of mail and other items in the back room. She saw Lewandowski emerge naked from the tree line in her back yard, heading toward the house. She deadbolted the back door and called 911.
"He hit the door really hard, and when that didn't work, he punched through the window," said McPhaul, her floor still peppered with broken glass. "He just kept saying, `I want in! I want in! I need help! I need help!' I told him help was on the way. Of course, I didn't say it was the police."
The back porch, door and window of McPhaul's home were splotched with dried blood.
As Lewandowski screamed through the broken window, bleeding profusely, McPhaul's husband, Clayton, was pulling up behind the home in his Ford Explorer. Lewandowski lunged toward the truck, smearing blood on the driver- and passenger-side windows, trying to get in.
"He was mumbling, asking for help," Clayton McPhaul said. "He mentioned God, but what all he was saying I couldn't tell you."
The McPhauls' daughter and son-in-law had just moved in next door. Son-in-law Kevin Saighman, 48, heard the commotion and came around the back of the home with a handgun. The two deputies who first arrived, meanwhile, were coming through the woods from the direction of the clay pit.
"They told him to get down and go spread eagle," Dorothy McPhaul said. "He knelt down but he wouldn't do it. Then he just stood up and walked by."
One of the deputies shot Lewandowski with a Taser. It hardly fazed him.
Able strike from 21 feet away, the Taser fires two small probes, which are connected to a wire in a hand-held device, which pumps about 50,000 volts of electricity through a subject for five seconds. It usually drops a person to the ground in what deputies call the "cardboard effect."
Witnesses said Lewandowski yelled but pulled the prongs out of his skin and ventured back into the clay pit. In the autopsy, Minyard found five distinct Taser wounds, meaning he was stunned at least three times with the weapon.
Criticism and support
What happened after Lewandowski returned to the clay pit is not clear.
The McPhaul family saw nothing but heard scuffling, more Taser shots and then at least five gunshots, fired in two volleys a few seconds apart.
Dorothy McPhaul fetched a glass of water for one of the deputies who emerged from the woods after the struggle.
"When he came out, they were helping him; he could hardly walk," she said. "The officer was about to pass out - totally out of it - like he might have been in a serious struggle."
Tom Lewandowski says he has no idea how it could have taken such force to subdue his son, an ex-Air Force enlisted man with a peaceable temperment.
"He was kind of a shy guy, always has been," Lewandowski said. "A young man trying to get on with his life. This didn't have to happen. He didn't deserve to die like this. Nobody does."
The second deputy-involved shooting in two weeks has gained the attention of local watchdog groups as well.
"This tragic case certainly raises questions about how competently the Escambia County Sheriff's Office handles situations involving people with troubled, erratic behavior and, more broadly, their use of deadly force," said Susan Watson, director of the Pensacola chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Sheriff's Office is not giving any answers for now, but not everyone is critical.
"The deputies were here immediately, and they all just worked like a team," Dorothy McPhaul said. "I have nothing but praise for them."
Three deputies - Jennifer Amerson, Kevin Eggleton and Christina Sudduth - are on administrative leave with pay, routine procedure following a shooting.
Eggleton was one of seven deputies involved in last week's Broughton shooting. He also was involved in the fatal shooting of Michael Paul Robb of Pace, who was found straddling another man and holding a knife to his chest in 2001. The Robb shooting was ruled justified.
Eggleton's fellow deputies are rallying in his defense.
"He's a solid officer," said Deputy Mike Kunert, who also is president of the Northwest Florida Police Benevolent Association.
Kunert declined to discuss specifics of the shooting but vouched for Eggleton.
"He's in control of his actions. It's unfortunate that he was involved in something like this. But I honestly believe that if he hadn't been involved, it could have got a lot worse. Kevin is a good guy, and he knows what he's doing."
Shooting baffles many
Nude man could have died from cut
Brett Norman
@PensacolaNewsJournal.com
The nude man shot Thursday night by Escambia County deputies was yelling incomprehensibly, praying in the middle of a busy thoroughfare and pleading for help in a bizarre chain of events leading to his death, witnesses said.
But a bullet from a deputy's gun is not what killed David Sean Lewandowski, 26, the District 1 Medical Examiner's Office reported Friday. The reportedly shy, red-haired man cut his arm when he punched through a window of a Cerny Road home, severing one branch of a major artery.
Dr. Andi Minyard said Lewandowski might have bled to death from that cut, but she will not finalize the findings until she receives toxicology results.
The Lewandowski case is the second deputy-involved shooting the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate in Escambia County in nearly two weeks. Sheriff Ron McNesby declined Friday to comment on either case, saying he does not want to influence the FDLE's investigation.
On June 16, Lathern Broughton, 64, was shot and killed after firing on a Special Weapons and Tactics squad raiding the Bullard Avenue home in which he barricaded himself for 2 hours.
However, questions remain, despite the medical examiner's report that the gunshot wound in Leandowski's arm did not kill him. Among those questions: Why was a man - who was last seen by civilian witnesses nude, unarmed and severely bleeding - shot?
Lewandowski's father, Tom Lewandowski, wants answers.
"Something's definitely wrong. My son shouldn't have died, period," he said. "He didn't deserve to die like this. Nobody does. Why didn't they help him?"
Another question is what prompted Lewandowski's apparent breakdown. His father said his son had no history of drug use or mental illness other than depression.
Dorothy McPhaul, who had a heated exchange with Lewandowski as he was trying to break into her home, has her own idea.
"I sometimes think the guy was ready to die," she said. "He came into the world naked and went out the same way, and he was talking about God. I don't know. But it seems like he was ready."
Strange behavior
Danny Crase agrees.
"There are just some people who aren't meant long for this world," he said.
Crase saw Lewandowski spiral into madness at Trisha's One Stop, the Blue Angel Parkway convenience store where Crase's sister - Tina Michelle Little - is a clerk.
Crase watched as the man swept a rack clean of its loaves of bread, sexually harassed an elderly woman and muttered feverishly about hydrogen and atom bombs and how they were going to kill everyone.
"They're trying to kill us," Crase recalls Lewandowski saying. "Can you give me a ride to Mexico, man? I've got to get out of here."
Little called deputies. Crase chased Lewandowski from the store and away from his pickup, which was parked next to a gas pump. Crase said Lewandowski offered him his IDs - "You can have everything!" - and ran south on Blue Angel Parkway, stripping as he ran.
Lewandowski was running in and out of traffic, clad only in his underwear, which was falling down, Crase said. He alternated between screaming and making obscene gestures at passing vehicles to kneeling in the middle of the road, hands cupped and outstretched, apparently in prayer, Crase said.
"I've never seen anyone so off his mind," he said.
Two female deputies arrived, one a K-9 officer, as Crase watched Lewandowski disappear across the street and down a hill into a clay pit.
On the other side of the pit, McPhaul, who had moved into to her newly built home just a week ago, was sifting through a basket of mail and other items in the back room. She saw Lewandowski emerge naked from the tree line in her back yard, heading toward the house. She deadbolted the back door and called 911.
"He hit the door really hard, and when that didn't work, he punched through the window," said McPhaul, her floor still peppered with broken glass. "He just kept saying, `I want in! I want in! I need help! I need help!' I told him help was on the way. Of course, I didn't say it was the police."
The back porch, door and window of McPhaul's home were splotched with dried blood.
As Lewandowski screamed through the broken window, bleeding profusely, McPhaul's husband, Clayton, was pulling up behind the home in his Ford Explorer. Lewandowski lunged toward the truck, smearing blood on the driver- and passenger-side windows, trying to get in.
"He was mumbling, asking for help," Clayton McPhaul said. "He mentioned God, but what all he was saying I couldn't tell you."
The McPhauls' daughter and son-in-law had just moved in next door. Son-in-law Kevin Saighman, 48, heard the commotion and came around the back of the home with a handgun. The two deputies who first arrived, meanwhile, were coming through the woods from the direction of the clay pit.
"They told him to get down and go spread eagle," Dorothy McPhaul said. "He knelt down but he wouldn't do it. Then he just stood up and walked by."
One of the deputies shot Lewandowski with a Taser. It hardly fazed him.
Able strike from 21 feet away, the Taser fires two small probes, which are connected to a wire in a hand-held device, which pumps about 50,000 volts of electricity through a subject for five seconds. It usually drops a person to the ground in what deputies call the "cardboard effect."
Witnesses said Lewandowski yelled but pulled the prongs out of his skin and ventured back into the clay pit. In the autopsy, Minyard found five distinct Taser wounds, meaning he was stunned at least three times with the weapon.
Criticism and support
What happened after Lewandowski returned to the clay pit is not clear.
The McPhaul family saw nothing but heard scuffling, more Taser shots and then at least five gunshots, fired in two volleys a few seconds apart.
Dorothy McPhaul fetched a glass of water for one of the deputies who emerged from the woods after the struggle.
"When he came out, they were helping him; he could hardly walk," she said. "The officer was about to pass out - totally out of it - like he might have been in a serious struggle."
Tom Lewandowski says he has no idea how it could have taken such force to subdue his son, an ex-Air Force enlisted man with a peaceable temperment.
"He was kind of a shy guy, always has been," Lewandowski said. "A young man trying to get on with his life. This didn't have to happen. He didn't deserve to die like this. Nobody does."
The second deputy-involved shooting in two weeks has gained the attention of local watchdog groups as well.
"This tragic case certainly raises questions about how competently the Escambia County Sheriff's Office handles situations involving people with troubled, erratic behavior and, more broadly, their use of deadly force," said Susan Watson, director of the Pensacola chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Sheriff's Office is not giving any answers for now, but not everyone is critical.
"The deputies were here immediately, and they all just worked like a team," Dorothy McPhaul said. "I have nothing but praise for them."
Three deputies - Jennifer Amerson, Kevin Eggleton and Christina Sudduth - are on administrative leave with pay, routine procedure following a shooting.
Eggleton was one of seven deputies involved in last week's Broughton shooting. He also was involved in the fatal shooting of Michael Paul Robb of Pace, who was found straddling another man and holding a knife to his chest in 2001. The Robb shooting was ruled justified.
Eggleton's fellow deputies are rallying in his defense.
"He's a solid officer," said Deputy Mike Kunert, who also is president of the Northwest Florida Police Benevolent Association.
Kunert declined to discuss specifics of the shooting but vouched for Eggleton.
"He's in control of his actions. It's unfortunate that he was involved in something like this. But I honestly believe that if he hadn't been involved, it could have got a lot worse. Kevin is a good guy, and he knows what he's doing."