A Florida man shot and paralyzed by a sheriff’s deputy during a controversial stop was unarmed and backing away when the cop opened fire, dashcam video obtained by WPTV and The Palm Beach Post shows.
Dontrell Stephens, then 20, was riding his bike through a South Florida neighborhood when Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy Adam Lin pulled up behind him in his cruiser, driving over grass lawns to employ a stop-and-frisk tactic the department said is common in high crime areas, according to The Post.
Footage from the Sept. 13, 2013 confrontation was released Thursday as part of a federal suit appears to show Lin shoot Stephens, who is black and has previous arrests for drug possession, four times just seconds after getting out of his vehicle and confronting him.
Dontrell Stephens was left paralyzed from the waist down by the shooting.
The suit claims there was no reason for Lin to stop Stephens and no command by the cop before he opened fire.
“There are no records of any commands ever made to Dontrell Stephens," West Palm Beach attorney Jack Scarola, who is suing PBSO, told WPTV.
"The deputy's recorded statements following the shooting were absolutely false,” Scarola said. “Internal affairs completely ignored that evidence.”
Lin returned to work four days after the shooting and the state attorney’s office called the shooting justified.
Stephens, who had marijuana on him at the time, was left paralyzed from the waist down by the shooting.
Police maintained Stephens had something in his hand that looked like a gun. It turned out to be a cell phone.
“If they don’t (comply) and they have something in their hands and they’re going to make a move towards the deputy, they’re going to defend themselves,” Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said in the wake of the incident.
"Stop what you're doing and comply with us,” Bradshaw added. "There's nothing in the rules of engagement that says we have to put our lives in jeopardy to wait to find out what this is to get killed."
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Dashcam video shows Palm Beach Sheriff's Office deputy Adam Lin confronting Stephens, who was carrying only a cell phone in his hand and talking on it while riding his bike.
The new video not only shows how quickly the deputy acted in using deadly force, but that responding officers were complicit, Scarola claims.
Lin can be heard talking to a fellow deputy after the shooting.
"He starts backing away," Lin said. "I said, ‘Get on the ground, get on the ground.’”
"I got your back man,” the fellow cop told Lin. “I got your back. Hey, you hear me?”
ThePalm Beach County Sheriff’s Office isn't commenting on the suit.
