TITUSVILLE, Fla. – The Titusville police chief revealed more Thursday about the night in which his officers shot and killed a 25-year-old man last week.
Tri-Marea Charles' death is now the subject of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) investigation, but very few details have been publicly released, fueling the anger in the community.
Titusville Police said Charles had a gun on him at the time.
Chief John Lau, of Titusville, appeared at a NAACP meeting Thursday and addressed a crowd of assembled friends and family of Charles. He said that because of the strong feelings in the community, the FDLE granted him permission to divulge more details about the night in question.
Lau characterized the house where officers had responded last Friday as a “hot spot,” where police had received numerous calls regarding shots fired.
Two days before the incident, he said, officers executed a search warrant and the house and recovered a gun. The calls about shots fired, though, continued in the two days after the search warrant.
Lau said that after police responded to the house Friday night, officers saw Charles trying to run out of the front door and appeared to trip.
“When he tripped, the firearm came out of his waistband,” Lau said. “That firearm was on the ground. His momentum continued him further. The officer alerted, ‘In a very loud, clear voice to the other officers, ‘He has a gun, he has a gun.’”
Several people in the crowd began to shout down the chief, but a representative with the NAACP quickly got the meeting back in order.
Lau proceeded to claim that a physical altercation occurred and Charles “re-armed himself with the gun that had fallen.”
“That’s when shots were fired,” he said.
The details did little to quell concerns from Charles' family and friends.
“The key thing was he dropped a gun,” said Alicia Myrie, who attended Thursday’s meeting. “He didn’t have a weapon.”
Myrie and others were also frustrated that they had yet to see the body camera footage.
“It’s not fair that you paint a picture,” she said. “You get everybody’s emotions all riled up and then leave it at that. It’s unfair.”
Lau had explained earlier in the night that the FDLE could not release the body camera footage until the investigation had concluded, due to the need to preserve the integrity of the probe.
An agent from the FDLE attended Thursday’s meeting and said the agency still had “voluminous electronic evidence to review” and “additional interviews to conduct.”
Among the people who attended Thursday’s meeting were local advocates who have scrutinized officer-involved shootings in the past.
One such advocate, Ingrid Richrath, left feeling dissatisfied.
“We want the whole picture,” she said. “Not just piecemeal.”
While many people who attended the meeting walked out with more questions than answers, they were satisfied to learn that Charles' mother was able to see her son’s body Thursday morning.
Earlier in the week, protesters who disrupted a city council meeting had demanded answers as to why she was not able to see her son’s body.
Chief Lau told News 6 earlier this week that his department had no jurisdiction over that matter.
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