A “despicable” homicide suspect was caught on bodycam video pointing a gun at a Florida deputy and pulling the trigger, the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.
Authorities said the Feb. 20 incident took place in Port Charlotte, which is about an hour southeast of Sarasota.
‘Let me be clear: This individual is lucky to be alive today.’
Deputies got word that two suspects from a Sarasota County burglary were driving through their jurisdiction in a rental car, officials said.
After observing a traffic violation, deputies stopped the car and made contact with the occupants, officials said.
The driver was identified as 41-year-old Amy Lee; the passenger refused to provide his identification, officials said.
At first, neither Lee nor the passenger complied with deputy commands to exit the vehicle, but officials said they soon obeyed when they were told they would be arrested for obstruction.
Officials learned that Lee was arrested last year on multiple felony charges and that her co-defendant in those cases was 55-year-old Brian Hewson. He turned out to be the passenger in the rental vehicle, and he also had multiple warrants for his arrest, officials said.
Hewson “immediately resisted” when deputies tried placing him under arrest, and a deputy drew his agency-issued taser while shouting a warning, officials said.
But Hewson pulled a concealed firearm, pointed it directly at the deputy, and pulled the trigger, officials said.
However, there was no round in the chamber of the loaded gun, officials said, and it didn’t fire.
With that, the deputy discharged additional taser probes — yet Hewson still tried to re-rack the gun, officials said.
“Thankfully, due to the neuromuscular incapacitation, Hewson was unable to maintain control of the gun, and it was secured by deputies,” officials said.
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Officials said Hewson was arrested for multiple warrants — including one for homicide in Pennsylvania, one for failure to appear in Pennsylvania, and charges in Lee County related to trafficking stolen property.
He also was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer for intentionally pointing a firearm at a CCSO deputy, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a controlled substance (1.1 grams of fentanyl found in the vehicle), resisting with violence, and possession of drug paraphernalia, officials said.
He was being held at the Charlotte County Jail without bond, officials said.
Brian Hewson. Image source: Charlotte County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office
“Let me be clear: This individual is lucky to be alive today,” Sheriff Bill Prummell said, adding that “I want to be sure it is understood that my deputies are trained to eliminate a lethal threat with deadly force. They deserve to go home to their families after their shift. This despicable human tried to take one of my deputies out instead of being a man and accepting accountability for his own decisions. Now he will face the justice he has tried to dodge for so long … and I hope he spends the rest of his days behind bars.”
The sheriff’s office added in its Facebook post about the incident that “as a point of clarification: We see a few people questioning why our deputy went taser instead of lethal. The answer to that is that he already had the taser in hand before the firearm was seen. Had our deputy attempted to switch from taser to firearm, he likely would have already been shot. The reaction, in the moment, is to use the taser that was already drawn and aimed to incapacitate the suspect. As you can see in the video, this happened VERY quickly.”
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