Grady Judd Press Conference: Deputy kills suspect who shot SWAT member

everyone thank you very much for being with me today I have with me also Sheriff Paul Blackman from Highlands County and let me tell you what occurred The Highlands County sheriff's deputies tried to stop a vehicle for running a stop sign on Highway 627 and 17A in Highlands County the vehicle didn't stop so they started a Pursuit as the pursuit proceeded toward Polk County they were just about to cancel the pursuit because they were only pursuing for traffic charges when they received a 9-1-1 call from a lady who said she was being held in the car so they did not disengage they continued to pursue 11 miles until they got here at 17A or Scenic Highway and T.S Wilson Road you can see the orange Nissan that's that's over my shoulder here and it was caught up in the in in a high area high rise so it lost traction the pursuit stopped of course Highlands County notified us and here's what we found out Raymond Martinez who's 37 years of age was the one in the passenger seat what we believe to be at one of our victims or at least a partial victim was the driver when the pursuit began she was not allowed to stop she was forced to continue to flee from the police I'll understand as I always tell you this is very early information and certainly anything I say here is subject to change as the investigation goes on but as I as is our policy we give you the most information that we have the quickest that we can so now Polk deputies have arrived they were not involved in the initial Pursuit and we're led to believe that there are three people in the vehicle our white female victim Raymond Martinez who is our suspect and a baby so our Lieutenant arrives along with a lot of Staff members and we began to negotiate with him for his peaceful surrender he tells us that he's got two Firearms two handguns with him and over the next hour and a half two hours our Lieutenant talks to him he continues to smoke methamphetamine you know methamphetamine that some people want to call a low-level non-violent drug those people are nuts by the way he continues to smoke his methamphetamine then he wants water so we said no problem let the baby and the lady out and we'll give you water he refuses to do that then they negotiate and they try to de-escalate and calm him down and say well what can you trade us for the water he throws out a magazine of and the magazine is full of ammunition then he clears a handgun and opens the door and throws it out so now if he's telling us the truth he's down to one firearm he continues to tell the baby quiet down baby quiet down stay underneath the cover stay underneath the cover it's okay well in the meantime Highlands County Sheriff's Office doing a magnificent job they start backtracking and they go we have run down who he is and who she is and we can account for his children because keep in mind that this is over a period of time as you can well expect now we've notified SWAT our SWAT team is in route so despite our best efforts to the contrary of de-escalating and trying to get him to turn the lady loose we have no luck he is high and low and high and low as he as he continues to smoke meth through the evening he's incredibly erratic he a one-time threatened suicide he said he couldn't let the baby go and he certainly couldn't let the woman go because if he did that than we would shooting we assured him that that was not the case that we wanted to peacefully take him into custody he accused Detective from The Highlands County Sheriff's office I'll be in the Sinaloa cartel from Mexico and he said the cartel was after him so that's the kind of person we were dealing with so SWAT team arrives our crisis negotiators pick up the negotiation and finally after another period of time they convince him to let the female out of the vehicle long enough to take a bottle of water back to him she gets out of the driver's side of the vehicle our deputies immediately grab her rescue her bring her to safety now I want to underscore at this point the investigation we have rescued the hostage successfully and she's not injured we confirmed with her at that point in time that there was no baby in the car that this was just part of his ruse to keep us at Bay so the negotiations continued he jumps over from the passenger side into the driver's side puts the car in gear and Floors the gas pedal winds up the car he's spinning throwing dirt and rocks every place trying to get the vehicle off of the high Center so he can once again flee when that occurs we introduce chemical agent to the vehicle he's the only one there he immediately starts shooting at the SWAT team he shot at the SWAT team several times as they began to return fire he shot one of my deputies one of my SWAT team members Samuel Yates it turns out Samuel shot in the shoulder and he's got some significant glass in his face from a bullet traveling through the window of this patrol car Samuel Yates was trauma lifted to Lakeland Regional Health he is in excellent condition the initial information the shot through the shoulder went high in the shoulder and is through and through and they're having to do some minor surgery to get some big shards of glass out of his face you can see on the ground here his equipment that's bloody from being shot as you can well imagine when you start shooting at a SWAT team it doesn't end up well and we shot Raymond Martinez a lot we killed him graveyard dead we gave him exactly what he asked for after negotiating and trying to de-escalate him for hours he was shot and killed in an Orange Grove in Polk County because he asked for it and we gave it to him we're not going to allow him to shoot at anyone certainly not our deputies or the Highlands County deputies without us taking the appropriate action make no mistake about it we can't at this point even count all the rounds that we shot back at him but he apparently he's got off several shots during the beginning of this gun fight but when you have a gunfight with a SWAT team you lose every time that was his last bad decision of the night the investigations underway by our task force shooting team will really we will provide more information to you release more information to you as we know it that's the initial information but my friend and colleague Sheriff Blackman I'm going to ask him to speak with you he is the county immediately south of Polk County he runs an incredibly Professional Organization and it's always an honor and a pleasure to work with his team we do that quite often Sheriff thank you Sheriff Judd just to reiterate some things that sheriff Judd said an initial traffic stop was initiated in the Highlands County area north of Avon Park that was about 10 45 10 46 last evening so that would have been Thursday evening June 29th the deputies initiated that traffic stop under the suspicion that the driver was possibly under the influence and that's why the initial traffic stop was was attempted that Pursuit LED toward towards to the north towards Polk County and uh and then to the Frostproof area here on Scenic Road we certainly want to appreciate and say thank you to the Polk County Sheriff's Office for their assistance and helping us get this individual off the streets and certainly a lot of accolades go out to the crisis negotiation team for their efforts in getting this man to give up absolutely resulted in the uh the saving of one hostage and we certainly do appreciate that and it's always always a pleasure to work with the Polk County Sheriff's Office and and under the leadership of sheriff Judd so thank you very much not yet we we know I think it's safe to say that their friends are they married we don't think so are they actual Partners we don't know we'll release that information when we know it she was able to get out it because of the work of our hostages and negotiation team and finally apparently he needed or wanted water that bad and and quite frankly we try to bait him out of the vehicle so we could take him into custody by putting water around so he could see it hoping that he would get leave the vehicle himself but finally he let her come out long enough to get the water that's when we grabbed her and escorted her to safety yes he has he has 16 previous felony arrests he has 13 previous misdemeanor arrests he's been to State Prison one time for a violent crime he's got a Litany of violent arrest as well as drug arrest and once again you all have heard this before I'll not quit saying it I'm sick to my stomach of there being a narrative that spread across this nation by a few people saying that the that drugs are low level and non-violent they were anything but low level or non-violent last night so at the end of the day for those who continue to say that to the community I certainly hope the community members look at them and recognize them for fools that they are by saying such a thing we have no indication on the citizenship or as gang status at this time once again we're early into the investigation all of our investigative teams are here now and that's information that we will determine and release whenever we get to that point in the investigation how long have you been a member and if you can tell us anything about it's been with the sheriff's office about three years he's actually a probationer on the SWAT team I would say that he did a remarkable job after he was shot this morning he continued to stay in the gun fight that's the kind of man he is that's kind of SWAT team that we have they kept the fight going because they were bound and determined that this guy was not going to hurt anybody else and he chose to die in a gunfight we accommodated him he said he wanted to go to heaven we made the arrangements for you the suspect never got out of the car he would he would roll the window down and talk to us and then roll the window back up chemical engine and on the telephone too by the way you know he was smoking meth and and as soon as we put the chemical agent in there in the vehicle that's when he started shooting and when he started shooting we started shooting and when he stopped shooting we were still shooting okay the orange one is the uh suspect's car what are the other two cars the black one and the red truck here so the red truck is one of our lieutenants Vehicles the uh SUV is the Highlands County Sheriff's Office vehicle that's where our Deputy was shot he was he was on the advanced team there and obviously you see our SWAT vehicle that was engaged as well but it was a heck of a shootout for a few minutes this guy he was so jacked up on meth he stayed in the gun fight because of his hyper drug-induced state for certainly a few seconds longer than we ever anticipated that he could no that's the that's some of the SWAT gear but that's not his that he was wearing his is over here yes the SWAT vehicle actually has has bullet holes

Channel: FOX 13 Tampa Bay

Views: 1,461,230

Keywords: Crime, Grady Judd, Polk County sheriff, Sheriff Grady Judd, suspect killed, suspect shoots SWAT member, Florida man, deadly deputy-involved shooting, hostage situation, standoff, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, Polk County, Frostproof, Frostproof shooting, deadly shooting, guns

Id: K1lQ5jqPyFU

Length: 15min 7sec (907 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2023