A Century man is behind bars Tuesday night. D, 32, is facing several charges after deputies say he abused an elderly man and resisted arrest.
He was eventually captured after the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office chased him down. Deputies used multiple forms of less-lethal force on him.
In the matter of seconds, deputies must decide what type of force to use to get someone to comply.
D was arrested Friday afternoon after the sheriff’s office says he attacked the elderly man at a mobile home in Century.
“So we had four deputies show up at the at the trailer and when we get to the trailer we hear a woman screaming get off of him,” Sheriff Chip Simmons said.
Witnesses say D punched the disabled victim, picked him up, and “threw him to the floor like a baby doll.”
According to an arrest report, deputies then tased D, who launched himself through a glass window to escape.
Deputies made contact with D outside the trailer then he fled again. That’s when officers fired bean bags at him.
Sheriff Simmons says deputies go through extensive training to decide what — if any — force to use on a suspect.
“We use only that force that’s necessary and reasonable to affect the arrest in this case,” Simmons said. “We tried verbal that didn’t work. We try to grab him, that didn’t work. We try to tase him, that didn’t work. So then we used the bean-bag rounds and it worked to a degree. Ultimately, we were able to to arrest him.”
After being unaffected by the bean bags, and another taser deployed in his direction, D entered the Century Foodmart on Century Boulevard. He then locked himself in the bathroom.
The store clerk gave deputies the key to the restroom. They were able to get D out and arrest him, using no more force.
“The deputies did a really good job of of only escalating to a point that was necessary to to affect the arrest,” said Simmons.
Simmons says there’s an escalation of steps law enforcement officers must think of when making split-second decisions like these.
“What would we hope people do and we would expect people to do is to adhere to our commands,” Simmons said. “And if you don’t do that then we’re gonna raise our level of force up one more notch.”
“It’s not easy being a law enforcement officer,” said Simmons. “You have to decide really quickly what to do and how to apprehend an individual. Sometimes you can do it with a verbal command, sometimes with what we call hands-on approach and sometimes it takes a taser or a beam background or any improvised weapon that you feel the need to use.”
D was ultimately charged with abuse of an elderly or disabled adult, criminal mischief, and resisting an officer without violence. He’s currently being held in the Escambia County Jail on an $8,500 bond.
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Source: weartv
