TRUTH BE TOLD: Sheriff Wayne Ivey Calls Out Accuracy of Newspaper Article, Cocoa Politician, Using Dash Cam Video

By  //  January 10, 2023

SHERIFF IVEY: 'They should be disgusted with themselves'

Hello everyone, I’m Sheriff Wayne Ivey of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, and you are watching “Truth Be Told.” Now, as everyone knows, our agency created “Truth Be Told” to set the record straight whenever someone in the media lies about our Deputies or intentionally misleads the public in an effort to undermine the confidence our citizens have in our agency.

Ok let’s be honest, when I say someone in the media, I am actually talking about Florida Today as for the past 10 years as Sheriff of Brevard County, I have tolerated and often shook my head in disbelief at the onslaught of attacks against me and our agency from their reporters.

On most occasions, I don’t even respond to their stories, as very few people even read their publication anymore and I couldn’t care less what they write about me…but let there be no doubt, when those same reporters at Florida Today write malicious and misleading stories that attack the integrity of our agency or these brave men and women who protect our community, I am going to respond, and I am going to give it right back to them, with both barrels.

Folks, I refuse to sit idly by and allow the so-called reporters at Florida Today to tarnish the good names of the men and women of our agency, especially when they know the real truth about what an amazing job our team is doing to protect our community!

While in previous episodes, “Truth Be Told” has been pointed at the reporters who intentionally manipulate their story to try and make our Deputies and agency look bad, in tonight’s episode, I’m going to also take aim at a Cocoa City Councilman, Alex Goins, who for whatever reason decided to insert himself in this matter and as you will see in the above video, didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

Trust me when I tell you that if my team does it wrong, I am personally going to hold them accountable, but when they do it right, and in this particular case, exactly right, I am not going to allow someone to target them or our agency for their bullshit agenda, so let’s do this…let’s tell the whole story and let the truth be told about the Florida Today headline that reads…Brevard Deputies Say They Tasered An Autistic Man With a Knife. So Where’s Weapon?

Now before I get started telling you the truth about what really occurred that night, I want to pause and say that my heart goes out to this young man as he, and this entire incident, is, unfortunately, being used by the Florida Today for their own personal vendetta against me and our agency.

This young man, without question, has a condition that caused his actions that night, and I am thankful that he is safe and that our Deputies handled the response in the exact manner that they did.

Alright, so back to the land of Florida Today Fiction, and as you can see, the headline was intentionally written to inflame and make it appear like our Deputies were lying and that the suspect never had a knife. As you will soon see, he was witnessed with a knife and our dash cam video clearly verifies that fact.

So once you get past the inflammatory and eye-catching headline, the story goes on to say that our agency is facing backlash after repeatedly using a stun gun on a man with autism. Boy, that was written to get your attention, wasn’t it? So next, they tell you that our Deputies say the man refused to drop a knife he was holding as the Deputies responded to a call about a prowler.

Ok, well, for the record, we weren’t responding to a routine prowler call, instead, we were actually responding to a man with a knife, who, as the witness described, was trying to get in the windows and door of a home that was only occupied by children, where the emergency 911 caller said he did not belong.

SHERIFF WAYNE IVEY: Ok, well, for the record, we weren’t responding to a routine prowler call, instead, we were actually responding to a man with a knife, who, as the witness described, was trying to get in the windows and door of a home that was only occupied by children, where the emergency 911 caller said he did not belong. (BCSO video image)

Now here is where they really try to make our actions look sinister as, for some reason, in the article, it was important to say, and I quote…”in the Lake View Neighborhood, a heavily black, low-income neighborhood.”

Can someone please tell me how that is relative to the story other than to try and make our Deputies appear prejudiced? I mean, really…if this alleged act by our Deputies were so egregious, would it really matter what neighborhood or socio-economic status it occurred in? Of course not, but again the article wasn’t written to reflect the truth, it was written to inflame and undermine the community’s confidence in our agency. Unfortunately, Florida Today no longer writes to inform, but instead, they now misinform in an effort to incite.

As you continue reading the article, you get to about the fourth paragraph before they finally feel compelled to tell you that their own expert, who they have repeatedly used, says the actions of our Deputies were likely justified under the circumstances.

Wait…What? Their own expert says our actions were most likely justified and yet they still write an article that attempts to make it appear our Deputies did something wrong in their response to the incident?

Well, regardless, let’s get back to the article, as this is where Cocoa City Councilman Alex Goins decides to insert himself by calling on me to institute body cameras so that they would know what happened. I guess Florida Today neglected to tell Mr. Goins before he made a fool of himself that the entire incident was captured on a Dash Camera video recording from our Patrol Cars, so we actually do know…exactly what happened.

The article then quotes a witness saying that as he is telling the Deputies that the young man is autistic, we are “roughing him up!!’ It also states that we didn’t find a knife at the scene and that a portion of the incident was recorded on the cell phone of a witness at the scene.

But still, for some reason, nowhere in their article do they mention that the entire incident was video and audio recorded on our dash camera. I wonder why, but hey, we will get to that in a minute.

Alright, once you get past that point, the article is pretty benign as they quote several professionals in the field of autism about the very limited form of mental health training that is provided to law enforcement officers in basic recruit class and how advanced training is not mandatory for most agencies.

For the record, both of our responding Deputies had attended the advanced Mental Health Training that the professionals in the field of autism spoke about in the Florida Today article. Our agency mandates this type of training as nothing is more important than protecting all of our citizens.

Florida Today also quotes the mother, saying that there would have been no reason for her son to be armed and that he has no criminal record and rarely causes trouble.

Unfortunately, and while my heart goes out to this mom, that’s not a completely true statement as while he does not have a criminal record, he has been Baker Acted for acts of violence and threatening to harm himself and others, including his mom, by our agency on three different occasions as an adult.

In fact, to be exact, the mom herself has called our agency to respond to her home multiple times because her son was acting violently and destroying their home. On one occasion, back in 2019, he even swung at his mom and one of our Deputies who unfortunately had to taze him to get him in custody for the purpose of the Baker Act.

While my heart goes out to him, his mother, and his family, the mere fact that he suffers from a developmental disability in no way mitigates the danger or threat he may pose to himself or others and certainly does not negate law enforcement of the duty to protect the community in which he may be found, committing what was alleged to be criminal and dangerous conduct.

So with all of that having been said, let’s see what really happened that night and just how extremely slanted and manipulated the Florida Today story truly was as they tried, once again, to undermine the professionalism of our agency.

While I think the overwhelming majority of our citizens already have a good idea of what really happened that night as they trust and respect our agency, it’s still important for them to see how slanted this story was, especially when the reporters and editors at the Florida Today had all of the facts or could have done due diligence to obtain all the facts prior to ever writing their story. Then, even worse, they intentionally omit facts to slant their story in an effort to create doubt in our citizen’s minds.

From what I can tell, Florida Today was so anxious to misrepresent the facts in this case so they could write a bad story that they didn’t bother to get the actual facts of the case so they could write a great story about how professionally our Deputies handled this potentially violent and critical incident.

Folks, let me tell you how badly they wanted to misrepresent the facts of this case in an effort to make our Deputies look bad…before they ever wrote their article, they had the emergency 911 call comments and the actual 911 recording where the extremely concerned citizen begged us to hurry to the scene to keep someone from getting hurt.

They had the investigative report that fully documents the entire incident, how it unfolded, and that the deputy’s vehicle dash camera had recorded the entire incident. That’s right…they knew that the entire incident was captured on our video camera, but guess what, they never bothered to ask for the dash camera video recording.

Now one could only wonder why they never asked for it, but I just have to wonder if it’s because the dash camera showed everything that happened that night, including the knife clearly displayed in the subject’s hand. They didn’t ask for our dash camera because it completely destroys their manipulated story on these brave Deputies who handled a potentially catastrophic incident perfectly!

Ladies and Gentlemen, what I’m about to show you are going to make you sick to your stomach when you see just how disingenuous Florida Today’s article was about how our Deputies handled this critical incident.

When you listen to the 911 call and watch the dash camera footage that recorded the incident, including clearly showing the suspect with the knife, and a deadly weapon in his hand, you can see for yourself just how professionally our Deputies responded to this incident.

Once you see this video, you are going to be very proud of your Deputies and yet furious that a media outlet would maliciously misrepresent the truth in an effort to tarnish the badges of these brave first responders.

So let’s start with the 911 call that led to our Deputies being dispatched to this incident as a citizen was calling for help…

Now, if you were to know nothing else, hearing that 911 call tells you everything you need to know that Florida Today and its reporters and editors write slanted articles intended to make our deputies, our agency, and your sheriff look bad.

If you knew nothing else about this case, after listening to that emergency 911 call, you have total clarity as to the serious nature of the call our Deputies were responding to as you hear the caller perfectly describe the subject, perfectly describe the knife he had in his hand, and clearly state that the subject had a knife at the window of a house where there were children alone inside.

You could also hear the caller as she begged us to hurry up, fearing for the safety of the children inside the home, and then her confirming as our Deputy arrived on the scene that we had the right subject.

Throughout the 911 call, you could hear the concern in the caller’s voice as she described the subject moving around in an effort to conceal himself and her relief when our Deputies arrived on the scene to address the perceived threat.

So obviously, we were called to the scene by a very concerned citizen in that community who described the knife to a tee and even stayed on the line with us until our Deputies arrived on the scene and located the exact subject she called about. The actions of this subject were significant enough to frighten a citizen to that depth and, given his history of violent and destructive behavior, could have resulted in harm to the residents inside the house or anyone else who may have confronted him.

Now, I am going to play the dash camera video recording for you that picks up as our first Deputy arrives on the scene, and guess what…the dash camera recording actually shows you the subject matching the exact description of the 911 call with a large knife in his hand, exactly as the concerned caller had described.

As you could clearly see in the video, the subject was in possession of a deadly weapon, a long knife that perfectly matched the description provided in the 911 call. In fact, you could actually see the glare on the knife blade as it moved across the spotlight of our Deputies car so in spite of what the Florida Today tried to manipulate it’s readers into believing…there was a knife in the subjects hands when we arrived and throughout the entire confrontation.

As our Deputies indicated in their report, a large, agitated crowd started gathering at the scene during the apprehension, so in an effort to quell the situation, our Deputies loaded the subject into the patrol car and left the area for the hospital for medical clearance. A brief search of the scene while they were still present did not locate the knife that had apparently been tossed by the subject during the altercation.

What you can also clearly see and hear in the video was the way our Deputies responded to and handled this very critical incident involving a non-compliant armed subject with a knife. You can hear how our Deputies give him repeated commands to drop the knife and also witness that as their mental health training takes over, they shift gears, holster their firearms, and transition to less-than-lethal tools because they began to recognize that the subject may be experiencing some type of mental crises.

I want you to please listen again to the dash cam recording as the second Deputy who arrived on scene shifts gears from aggressively telling the subject to drop the knife to trying to interact with him by asking him his name in an effort to de-escalate the situation. Even more importantly, you can actually hear our Deputy making sure that the other Deputy on scene has picked up on the mental health crisis by telling him to go to less lethal. You literally hear him say…. “Go less lethal, switch to taser!”

You can clearly see and hear for yourself that our Deputies tried to speak with him in a softer tone, and when all compliance efforts failed, they responded with the lowest level of response to resistance available that would ensure the subject was not harmed but would also allow them to safely address the concern.

Folks, I could not be more proud of our Deputies as they did it exactly right!! They followed their training and their protocols to the letter as they responded to a dangerous call of a subject armed with a weapon who appeared, based on the witness statement, as if he was prepared to break into a residence with only children home!!

They located the subject, they addressed the immediate threat, who was described as armed with a knife appearing to be the length of an adult forearm. They appropriately gave him verbal commands to comply, and when they learned that he possibly had some type of disability that prevented him from understanding and responding to their commands, they de-escalated the situation.

Again, following their mental health training, they shifted gears in an effort to immediately deescalate the situation to the extent they could, deploying a taser so they could remove the threat from the area as safely as possible for the deputies, the subject, and those in the home and neighborhood.

Even Florida Today’s own “use of force expert” states that the actions of our Deputies were “likely justified under the circumstances.” However, yet they still try to slant their story to make it appear that our Deputies were using excessive force or acting unprofessionally in their response to this incident.

Our Deputies did it exactly right, and because of their brave and heroic actions, the situation was de-escalated and ended with everyone going home safe!!

As I said toward the beginning of this segment of “Truth Be Told,” Florida Today was well aware there was dash cam footage that recorded this incident, and they never asked for it. You know why? They didn’t want the dashcam footage because it accurately depicts the events, commands, and decision-making, before and during the subject’s apprehension rather than afterward when the threat had been neutralized. Essentially, the dash cam video and audio recording deflated their entire implied narrative that the subject wasn’t armed with a knife and that my Deputies were lying.

They should be disgusted with themselves as for the past ten years Florida Today has done nothing but attack your sheriff and the brave men and women of your Sheriff’s Office. If they want to attack me, go ahead, as I don’t give a crap what they say about me, but I refuse to allow them to attack these brave men and women who stand guard at the door each and every day to protect our community!

Oh, and Mr. Goins, don’t think I forgot about you as I think your quote in the paper was, “We’re not going to sweep this under the rug. We want to know why it took place the way it did.” Well, looky here, Mr. Goins, truth be told, we do know why it took place, and it’s because the subject was prowling in the area, armed with a large knife in his hand when our Deputies arrived on scene, and it was all captured on video, just like you wanted.

Maybe in the future, if you really want to know what happened, instead of trying to look important, try to actually be important and pick up the phone and call me to ask what actually happened! You are a so-called elected leader in our community, so if you really had a concern, you could have picked up the phone and called me like you have done before.

Here endeth the lesson. Now that, my friends, is what “The Truth” looks like!

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