Police released body-cam video of a summer 2019 officer-involved shooting of a homeless man holding a knife to another’s throat, the first
Following weeks of loud demands for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to release footage from police shootings, the agency did just that for the first time, showing the killing of a knife-wielding man last year.
The graphic footage begins with Officer Tyler Landreville finding Frankie Feliciano holding a knife on a man in a wheelchair. Landreville yells, “Put the f—ing knife down!” before his three rapid gunshots drop Feliciano on West State Street.
“Oh, thank God,” the man in the wheelchair says as Landreville radios in.
“HQ, shots fired, got one down. Start rescue,” the officer is heard saying, his handgun still briefly held out as the man in the wheelchair leans forward and signs.
Landreville does not offer any aid to the dying man.
The release comes after Landreville was cleared by the Sheriff’s Office. He will face no discipline or training, and he had already been cleared of any criminal arrest back in March by the State Attorney’s Office.
The release also followed weeks of protests that found thousands of Jacksonville residents chanting, “Release the footage,” to Sheriff Mike Williams, State Attorney Melissa Nelson and Mayor Lenny Curry.
Williams and Nelson have said they agreed they needed to find a way to release footage quicker. By December last year, every patrol officer was outfitted with a body-worn camera. There have been 12 police shootings since then, and none have been released.
Landreville killed Feliciano, 33, near midnight on July 10.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office didn’t respond to a Thursday evening request for comment. Landreville’s attorney, Phil Vogelsang, declined to comment, as did Fraternal Order of Police 530 President Steve Zona.
Ben Frazier, head of the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville and one of many voices calling for the release of footage, applauded the release but still expressed skepticism about the delayed release of other footage.
“It is a step in the right direction, even though it was slow in coming,” said Frazier. “We think that the sheriff is still hiding other bodycam videos that should be released immediately. We are particularly concerned about the one involving Jamee Johnson. The sheriff should stop beating around the bush and released these videos with all deliberate speed.”
Johnson, a 22-year-old student of Florida A&M University, died Dec. 14 after being shot by a Jacksonville Sheriff’s officer last December. The Sheriff’s Office has said he was reaching for a gun in his car after a traffic stop, but it has been unwilling to release the footage from the shooting.
The protests calling for the release of footage has come in the wake of the fatal shootings of Geroge Floyd on Memorial Day by now ex-Minneapolis police officers, the February shooting death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Brusnwick and others in the past years in Jacksonville.
The video of Landreville’s shooting starts silently as Landreville runs up on the scene. His handgun appears, held in front as he continues to run up to Feliciano and the man in the wheelchair. Audio comes on as Landreville holds his gun in both hands. Feliciano is seen leaning into the disabled man, knife in right hand as his left hand holds the disabled man’s wrist back over his head.
A witness had called 911 to report a man in a wheelchair being held at knife point. Landreville was the first officer on the scene near the Ritz Theatre, and witnesses pointed him to the veteran in his wheelchair.
Landreville orders Feliciano to put the knife down, then fires the first of three rapid shots one second later, according to the counter on the video. Feliciano falls across the disabled man as the knife is heard hitting the sidewalk.
“I never met the man before,” the disabled man tells Landreville as he looks down at Feliciano. “Oh man. I didn’t want to see him die.”
As approaching sirens are heard, Landreville is heard telling an officer, “don’t drive too fast.”
“We’ve got a Whiskey Mike (white male) down, three gunshots to the head,” he radios.
State Attorney Melissa Nelson released the results of her office’s investigation of the Feliciano shooting on March 18, telling the Sheriff’s Office that the death “was justified under applicable Florida law.
“We will be providing a detailed report of our review to you in the near future,” it said. “We are notifying you of our legal opinion now, though, so that you can take any internal or administrative actions that may be necessary.
The Sheriff’s Office’s Response to Resistance Board met at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday to discuss Landreville’s shooting, according to Sheriff Mike Williams’ calendar, released Thursday by the department.
In the video of the use-of-force board, members disagreed about what the video showed. One member asked Landreville why he shot so quickly.
“You told him to drop the knife and then immediately shot,” the board member said. “Why not give him at least a split second to drop the knife, at least give him the opportunity?”
But another member disagreed.
“I perceived it differently,” he said, adding that he thought the suspect did have an opportunity to disarm. “All of our perceptions are different.”
Landreville said the “threat to the hostage was a 100 percent chance of death if I did not act.”
The board unanimously agreed the shooting was within the office’s use-of-force policy and didn’t require further training.
The bodycam video was released in the media portal late Thursday.
In a news conference after the shooting, Chief T.K. Waters said they had no idea yet why Feliciano attacked the man, a U.S. Army veteran. But as he stood next to an image of the knife surrounded by blood spots, Waters said then that the decision to fire was made “very, very quickly,” and saved the life of the disabled man.
This was Landreville’s second fatal officer-involved shooting case in three years. The state attorney’s office ruled in 2017 that the May 2016 shooting that killed 22-year-old Vernell Bing Jr., an unarmed Black man, was justified. The shooting occurred after Bing crashed a stolen sports car into Landreville’s police car, witnesses reporting that the man looked disoriented as he limped. The Sheriff’s Office said Bing did not comply with Landreville’s commands, one of five shots fired striking him in the head.
*story by The Florida Times-Union