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A Florida man was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies after he was bitten by an alligator during an early morning dip in a lake, then threatened the officers with garden shears as he attempted to enter their patrol vehicle, the sheriff said.
Photos posted to social media by deputies in Polk county showed the aftermath of Monday’s fatal, exceptionally chaotic events in Lakeland that ended with Timothy Schulz, 42, dead in what Grady Judd, the sheriff, called a “rampage”.
The images showed the officers’ vehicle with a shattered windshield from multiple gunshots – and the shears on the passenger seat surrounded by shards of broken glass.
Schulz received a bite on his right arm during his swim at a gated community lake with several alligators, Judd told a press conference, reported by CBS News.
He was believed to be high on methamphetamine, the sheriff added.
Deputies were earlier called to a nearby convenience store by a worker who reported a man acting strangely, shaking, and asking to call his son – but the person had disappeared by the time the members of the sheriff’s office arrived.
Judd said that about two hours later, at 7.43am, residents of the gated community called to report he was in the lake. He then emerged with a bloodied arm, picked up the shears that a neighbor had left in their yard and attempted to smash a car window with a brick.
When deputies arrived for the second time, Judd said, Schulz charged their vehicle while waving the shears, and tried to snatch their weapons, forcing them to fire.
“This is just crazy stuff, OK? You know that it’s got to be true – you can’t make it up,” said Judd, who added that his officers had twice tried to subdue the suspect with a stun gun.
“The fact that he was bitten by an alligator, significantly, and still continued his rampage is shocking,” Judd remarked. “But if you’re on enough meth, then the person you see is not the person that’s attacking.”
Neither of the responding officers was injured.
Schulz has a history of drug-related arrests and was released on 20 May from a prison sentence for the possession of meth, the sheriff’s office said in a social media post.
