ORLANDO, Fla. – Members of the Orlando Citizens Police Review Board are getting some of their questions answered following the death of William Sellers.
“This involves an officer involved shooting for officers that were responding to an attempted suicide,” Sgt. April McConnell with Orlando police said.
Sellers, 73, was a veteran that was shot and killed by Orlando police outside his home in August 2021.
According to investigators, Sellers first called 911 and made suicidal statements, and when officers arrived at his house, he was standing on his porch waving a gun.
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“The number one thing we want to make sure is that we identify is if there are any weapons involved and what type of weapons are involved because that dictates a couple of things. Who are we going to send to the call, how many units are going to respond to the call,” LaTashia Stephens with OPD said.
Investigators said officers spent about 20 minutes begging Sellers to put the gun down.
Board members asked about crisis intervention and negotiation training officers receive and whether or not there were other tactics that could’ve prevented the shooting.
“They had officers there on scene who were CIT [Crisis Intervention Team] trained and were communicating with him doing their best to de-escalate or just at least stall to keep him talking, and then they had CNT [Crisis Negotiation Team] on the way and like I said, sometimes time is not on our side,” McConnell said.
Captain Jerry Nearine said 673 officers have received crisis intervention training out of 840.
He explained the department holds three classes throughout the year with Valencia College.
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