Six body camera videos released Tuesday night do not clearly show an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy shooting an armed man in the back outside the Florida Mall, leaving key questions unanswered.
Deputy James Montiel shot Salaythis Melvin on Aug. 7 as the 22-year-old ran from him, after deputies had converged on him and a group of friends. A report from deputies said Montiel shot him after Melvin “turned his head” to face the deputy “while still holding his firearm,” which made the deputy think he was about to pull a gun.
The only body camera footage that shows the seconds before Melvin was shot came from a deputy driving toward Melvin, still about 50 yards away from him, captured through his front window.
In that video clip, Melvin is seen running through the relatively empty mall parking lot, with no one immediately behind him for about 25 feet, when he falls to the ground mid-stride. A deputy, not in full uniform, runs up behind Melvin on the ground about four seconds later. Soon after, deputies surround him with their guns drawn, yelling at him to keep his hands up.
“Keep your [expletive] hands out,” one deputy shouts at Melvin. He twitches on the ground, moving his hands and legs as deputies shout at him: “Stop moving!”
“Get your hands out or you’re going to get [expletive] shot!
After about a minute passes, someone is heard saying the man is seizing and his eyes are rolling into his head, at which point the deputies approach him to give medical aid. Deputies try to stop the blood, and later start doing chest compressions. Melvin starts breathing again as paramedics arrive — “coming in and out,” a deputy notes — but he appears barely responsive. Deputies say they cannot feel Melvin’s pulse.
“He’s barely hanging on,” one says.
Though Sheriff John Mina said he had reviewed body camera video of the shooting hours after it occurred, none of it came from the deputy who fired the fatal shot, according to the records released Tuesday. Brad Laurent, the attorney representing Melvin’s family, said the agency told him that Montiel did not have body camera footage from the shooting.
He declined to comment further on the body camera footage late Tuesday.
The Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to questions from the Sentinel about why there was no body camera footage from Montiel of the shooting.
Pressure from the public and Melvin’s family had built to release the footage, especially after it was confirmed that Melvin had been shot in the back.
The other five videos show deputies apprehending the other three other people detained, including deputies attempting to arrest one of the other men on a felony warrant.
The agency released the videos late Tuesday, just minutes before polls closed in the primary in which Mina won reelection.
Orange County sheriff’s officials announced last week the agency would release the video after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement completed its initial interviews in the case to “protect the integrity of its investigation,” which FDLE had requested. FDLE investigates all deputy-involved shootings for the sheriff’s office.
In a press conference a few hours after the shooting, Mina gave few details about the shooting. He said deputies confronted the group of people to arrest one of them on a warrant for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Melvin, who Mina said was armed with a stolen handgun, took off running and was soon after shot in what Mina called a confrontation with a deputy.
Melvin later died in the hospital. The agency posted on Twitter a photo of the gun deputies said Melvin was carrying, which officials later said was loaded.
Three days later, court records revealed that Melvin had been shot in the back by Montiel. An affidavit detailed that Melvin had run from Montiel with his right hand on a handgun in his waistband when the deputy exited an unmarked vehicle.
When Melvin turned his head while holding the gun, Montiel fired, the report said.
Deputies detained the three other people in the group, later arresting 19-year-old Vanshawn M. Sands on the warrant that prompted the confrontation, court records show.
Sands was wanted in a July 7 shootout in Pine Hills. Another man in the group was arrested on a probation violation, court records show, but the woman in the group was released and told the Sentinel she questioned why the confrontation and shooting had to happen, especially over a warrant.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office also said last week that it will adopt a new protocol for releasing video from deputy shootings that will “balance the interest of protecting active investigations while facilitating OCSO’s commitment to transparency.”
On Tuesday, it said in a statement officials are still drafting that policy.
Monivette Cordeiro and Katie Rice contributed to this report. gtoohey@orlandosentinel.com
