Police Chief Buz Dillon is still refusing to tell the citizens of this island what really happened on the night of Sunday, July 22, when his officers became embroiled in a potentially-deadly shootout at the foot of Front Street, followed by a high-speed— and, also, potentially-deadly— chase through Old Town. We now believe that as many as 18 shots— or more— may have been fired at a couple attempting to elude cops in a pickup truck. The couple may or may not have been armed.
We have asked Dillon for a report, even invoking the State public records law to try to get it. To no avail. He has yet to tell us— or you— what actually went down.
So here is what we've been able to piece together so far, based on eye-witness accounts and information from sources both inside and outside the Police Department.
At 11:52 p.m., Officer Cuneo (in police reports, none of the cops have first names) reportedly stopped a man and a woman in a pickup truck at the corner of Duval and Front Streets for reckless driving. But when Cuneo asked for identification, the male driver told him to have intercourse with himself and sped away.
Cuneo put out an alert on the radio and, moments later, Sgt. Lee spotted the pickup in the 200 block of Simonton. By this time, cops say, they knew that the pickup had been reported stolen at knifepoint in Palm Beach County. Lee and Cuneo followed the truck from Simonton to Caroline, to Whitehead and back to Front, and on to the end of the street at the A&B Lobster House and the Galleon Resort. Out of road, the truck entered the A&B parking lot.
Officers threw up a roadblock of police cars across Front Street, at the parking lot entrance.
"We've got `em now, Mr. Dillon!" we can imagine them crowing on the radio. "They're trapped in Box Canyon!"
But, suddenly, the pickup came roaring out of the parking lot, this time driven by the woman. She disposed of the roadblock by simply ramming Officer Biskup's car, shoving it out of the way, and, reportedly, almost running down Officer Lowe.
At this point, Sgt. Lee and Officers Biskup and O'Connell reportedly pulled their weapons and fired repeatedly at the pickup. Dillon is telling the City Commisssioners that eight shots were fired.
But what he hasn't told them was which way the officers were shooting. If the pickup was speeding down Front toward Simonton, that probably means that the officers were firing their weapons toward busy Duval Street. Or were they shooting toward the Galleon Resort? Or the Hyatt? Or the Pier House?
We have talked to witnesses who were at Two Friends Restaurant. "We all hit the floor when we heard the shooting," he said. But this same witness gave us some information that may suggest that Dillon may have not exactly told the Commissioners the truth about the number of shots fired.
A police officer from out-of-town was among the customers at Two Friends. After all the cops had abandoned the "crime scene" at the entrance to the A&B parking lot to chase the pickup truck, he walked down to see what he could see. When he returned to the restaurant, he reportedly said that he counted at least 18 shell casings, all the same caliber, probably all from the cops' weapons.
If the Chief is now saying that only eight shots were fired, maybe his people only got around to counting the shell casings after the tourists had milled around the crime scene, possibly picking up casings as souvenirs.
Perhaps to justify all the shooting— and endangerment of surrounding property and innocent bystanders— Dillon now says that the man in the truck had a gun and was shooting at officers as the pickup came out of the A&B parking lot. But the Chief won't say how many shots the man allegedly fired. And when the truck was finally stopped, neither of the occupants had a gun. And we don't know if any shell casings from the mystery gun were found inside or outside the pickup.
And, the next day when the cops fed a Citizen reporter information about the incident, there was no mention of a "man with a gun" who may have fired at the cops first. It is unlikely that the reporter simply neglected to include that important piece of information in her story, which appeared on page 3 of the Citizen on July 24. Is it possible that the "man with a gun" story may have been developed later by Team Dillon?
Do we have to apologize here for being jaded when Dillon says that he and his boys are telling Key Westers the truth? In recent weeks, we have forced them to admit that they are liars and obstructionists. (But that's okay, they said. The lies were only little lies— and, they added, they didn't do it "knowingly".)
Is the "man with a gun" story just a figment of Dillon's imagination to try to justify why his officers were firing a hail of bullets down Front Street on a busy Sunday night? Officers who were on the scene could tell us the truth— but Dillon won't allow them to speak to the press.
Dillon now says that the explanation as to why a gun wasn't found in the pickup was because the "perps" probably threw it out the window during the chase. Cops say that they did find an empty gun case in the truck. They also say they searched selected areas along the chase route, but didn't find a gun.
But how seriously did they search? Did they only look at night? Did they send people out the next morning? Why did they not ask the public for help?
Don't you find it interesting that what you're reading right now is probably the first time you've ever heard about the possibility that, two weeks ago, a man in a pickup may have had a gun and may have fired at the cops before they fired at him? And that the cops "lost" the gun?
Don't you find it interesting that when the cops gave information to the Citizen reporter on the day after the incident, they "forgot" to tell her that the man in the truck was firing a gun?
It should have been very important to Dillon to prove that the man had a gun to, at least in part, try to justify all that shooting. But maybe it was just the story that was important.
Question: Once the man was in custody, did the cops chemically test his hands to see if he had been firing a weapon? If not, isn't it convenient that the only "evidence" that there may have been a man with a gun may be that the cops now say there was one— even though they wern't telling the Key West Citizen that on the day after the shooting? And we all know that the cops tell the truth, don't we?
Once out of the A&B parking lot and through the roadblock, the pickup reportedly raced down Front to Duval, to Greene, to Simonton, to Eaton and across the bridge to North Roosevelt and out toward the triangle.
As many as nine police vehicles were eventually involved in the high-speed chase across the island, with lights flashing and sirens blaring.
The cops had set up another blockade at the triangle, blocking the northbound lane. The driver of the pickup avoided that roadblock by simply swerving and going the wrong way in the southbound lane up US1. But a rear tire had shredded (hit by a bullet?) and the driver lost control and spun into a utility pole.
The 27-year-old man and the 22-year-old woman was arrested and jailed. Miraculously, there were no injuries or deaths as a result of flying bullets and out-of-control vehicles.
Chief Dillon says he's conducting an "inquiry." In the meantime, we'll continue to report to you what we can dig out. Of course, it would be a lot easier if Dillon would simply come forward and tell us all what's going on— full disclosure, minimum delay. But that's not his thing.
So . . . stay tuned. We'll do it for him.