There's something about Florida that attracts Walt's agents. Some live there full-time. Some go for a few months to escape the harsher northern winter. [You got that right! Ed.] Walt himself still has an expired FL driver's licence in his pocket. However, Walt has yet to set foot in Polk County, somewhere between Tampa and Kissimmee [pronounced with the stress on the second syllable. Ed.]
Agent 9 has added to our stock of strange but true Florida tales the story [verified by Snopes! Ed.] of an illegal alien who got stopped for a traffic violation, shot the cop who stopped him, and was in turn executed by Polk County deputies. No Miranda rights. No negotiations. Filled full of lead -- 68 bullets worth.
Just before noon on 28 September 2006, in Lakeland (Polk County's biggest city), Polk County Deputy Doug Speirs pulled over a speeding rental car bearing Kentucky tags, driven by Angilo Freeland, a 27-year-old native of Antigua who had been arrested on various charges in 1999 but had afterwards skipped bail. The fake driver's licence proffered by Freeland made the cop suspicious, so he called for backup. Deputy Matt Williams and his police dog, DiOGi [geddit? Ed.] were dispatched to the scene.
Likely sensing things weren't going well, Freeland broke from the officers and ran into the woods. He took cover in the densely forested area near a fallen oak tree that made him all but impossible to see. The two officers and the dog went into the woods after him, Williams and DiOGi working one area, and Speirs another.
As DiOGi closed on the suspect's hiding place, Freeland shot the dog in the chest from close range at an upward angle, killing it. He then fired on nearby Deputy Williams, wounding him in the right wrist, left bicep, rear left thigh, right leg, right buttock, and upper right arm. One of the shots penetrated to the officer's spine. Freeland then approached the immobilized man and delivered two shots to Williams' head at point-blank range, finishing him off.
Deputy Speirs heard the shots from a nearby ridge, moved towards the sounds of the gunfire, and was shot at by Freeland. The two exchanged fire, and the deputy was wounded in the leg. He radioed for help and made his way out of the woods.
Every available unit and canine team descended on the area. Freeland remained under the oak tree overnight, where a 10-member SWAT team found him the next morning. When they saw Freeland raise his right hand clutching a gun (one they would later learn belonged to the dead deputy), nine of the ten officers fired, hitting him with 68 of 110 shots. Freeland was dead at the scene.
When asked by the local meeja for a statement about the manhunt and its outcome, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd explained: "You have to understand, he had already shot and killed a deputy, he had already shot and killed a K-9, and he shot and injured another deputy. Quite frankly, we weren't taking any chances. You kill a policeman it means no arrest, no Miranda rights, no negotiations, nothing but as many bullets as we can shoot into you...PERIOD."
Sheriff Judd was reported to have told the Orlando Sentinel that his deputies shot Freeland 68 times "because that's all the ammunition we had."
The Polk County Coroner who examined Freeland reported that he had died of natural causes. When asked by a reporter how that could be, since there were 68 bullet wounds in his body, he answered, "When you're shot 68 times you're naturally gonna die!"
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