Tasers can't stop man after assaulting woman holding child, officers then use deadly force
Officers were called about 11:20 p.m. on July 15 to assist fire-rescue personnel in the 12500 block of Brahma Bull Circle near New Berlin Road. The family members who called 911 were already out of the house, but the officers could hear loud, frantic screaming from a man and woman inside. They kicked in a bedroom door and saw the room all disheveled and the man on top of the woman pulling her hair with the child in her arms, the Sheriff's Office said.
He refused several commands to release her and back away, but continued to aggressively attack her, the Sheriff's Office said.
"From behind the lady, he's holding her by the hair, just yelling and screaming ... not letting her go," Chief Alan Parker said. "She's holding onto a young child. We find out later that she is currently pregnant with that gentleman's baby it sounds like. Meanwhile, they're trying to separate them, so they end up tasing him. They're able to get her separated at that point."
The officers backed off and began communicating with the suspect for about 30 minutes to get him to come out and surrender. When he finally came out, he remained combative. The Sheriff's Office noted he was a large man and had to be tased several more times. He fought through the tasings and attacked the officers.
"He knocks one over and into a table and drives the other one all the way into the kitchen," Parker said.
Three officers then shoot him. He died and one of the officers was treated for minor injuries while another "was a little banged up." The Sheriff's Office didn't say whether the woman suffered any injuries.
The suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Amir Bradsher. He has no local criminal history, according to Duval County court records, and appears to be from North Carolina.
"Throughout this whole thing ... whatever he was saying they couldn't really make sense of, he's continuing to eat this lady's hair that he had ripped out during the fight inside the room. So there's this whole interaction and he's chewing on her hair and everything, so we don't know what he was going through."
Sheriff T.K. Waters said it's a difficult situation.
"You're there, you're trying to bring the situation to a close safely," Waters said. "But you walk in, you see a lady on the ground, he's literally pulling her hair and not letting her go."
The Sheriff's Office identified the officers involved as Lucas Robinson, Kamau Richardson and Harold Taylor Jr. For Officers Robinson and Richardson, it was the first police shooting in two and five yeas with the force, respectively. For Sgt. Taylor a 16-year-veteran, it was his second.
This marks the 11th police shooting this year in Jacksonville and seventh fatal. For all of last year there were eight with three fatal, according to Times-Union records.
(This story has been updated with the officers' full names.)
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Police shoot, kill man chewing woman's hair during domestic assault
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