GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Officers in Gainesville shot and killed a teen carrying what appeared to be an assault rifle late Sunday night.
It happened at the Majestic Oaks Apartment Complex on SW 20th Avenue, just a few miles west of the University of Florida campus.
Police said Robert Dentmond, 16, called 911 and said he was walking around the apartment complex “with an ‘M-16’ rifle,” and also said he wanted to shoot himself and then disconnected the line, according to a joint release from the Gainesville Police Department and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.
When they got to the complex, officers and deputies found Dentmond to be armed with what appeared to be an AR-15 style assault rifle, according to the release. Police later determined the weapon was a realistic replica of a semi-automatic rifle.
At first, Dentmond initially dropped his weapon, but a few minutes later, he picked it back up again and started walking toward one of the occupied apartment buildings inside the complex, the release detailed.
Dentmond was given several warnings to drop his weapon and if he kept walking towards the buildings with the rifle, "they would have no other option but to utilize deadly force," according to the release.
Law enforcement said they shot Dentmond and he later died at UF Health at Shands Hospital. The investigation of the shooting has been turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and officers and deputies involved in the shooting will be placed on administrative leave per routine procedure.
Investigators discovered that prior to the shooting, Dentmond sent text messages that "clearly indicated to the recipient that he was armed with a gun" and "if he had to, he would force law enforcement to kill him." ACSO and GPD said those text messages were not available to officers prior to their response to the Majestic Oaks apartments.
Five ACSO deputies fired their weapons and of those five, three are Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) certified. Four GPD officers fired their weapons and of those four, one is CIT certified. If an officer is CIT certified, this means they have undergone 40 hours of training in identifying individuals suffering from mental illness, individuals in crisis and de-escalation techniques.
Members of the Negotiations Response Team were responding to the location and were going to take over the responsibility of communicating with Dentmond "prior to his actions which force deputies and officers on scene to employ a lethal response."
Cox Media Group
