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By BILLY TOWNSEND
The Tampa Tribune
LAKELAND - The shoulder-to-shoulder line of Central Florida SWAT officers, organized in closely linked teams of 10 or 11, stretched for hundreds of feet and slowly crept north toward Interstate 4.
Carrying MP5 submachine guns and other assault weapons, the officers hacked through vines and poked at every possible hiding place Friday in a dense patch of brush and woods that had become ground zero of the search for a man who killed a deputy.
Just after 9:30 a.m., one of the teams happened upon a large fallen oak tree. Dug in beneath it they found the man accused of ambushing and killing Deputy Matt Williams and his K-9 partner Diogi on Thursday.
“They were pretty much on top of him before they could see him,” Sheriff Grady Judd said.
In a flash, what probably was the most intensive manhunt in Polk County history reached its climax.
One officer, who hasn’t been identified, ordered the suspect to show his hands, Judd said. The suspect showed just one hand.
Then someone saw a gun in the other, and nine of 10 members of the team opened fire, killing the man in place with “numerous” shots, Judd said. It was less than 100 yards from where Williams and Diogi were killed.
The suspect had his right hand on Williams’ 45-caliber semiautomatic service handgun, investigators said.
About a half-mile away, at the command post near Kathleen High School, police radios began to crackle, and the news spread fast.
At one point Judd was heard on the radio saying, “Search is over. Suspect Signal Seven.” That’s police language for dead.
A cheer went up.
Within moments, Judd arrived to tell reporters, announcing, “God will be the judge and jury this time.”
2 Days, 2 Names
But who is the man upon whom the verdict was rendered?
The sheriff’s office provided a second possible identity for him in as many days.
Judd said detectives are certain that a man arrested in Polk County in 1999 under the name Angilo Freeland, 27, is the same man killed under the tree Friday.
They do not know if that’s the name on his birth certificate or the one he used most often. Angilo Freeland has ties to several Lakeland addresses, investigators said. None seems current.
A different name, Eswardo O. Ramclaim, was provided Thursday night - with warnings that it probably was bogus. It was the name the man gave Deputy Douglas Speirs when he stopped him for speeding at 10th Street and Wabash Avenue in north Lakeland.
Freeland was arrested in 1999 by the Florida Highway Patrol on charges that he had no driver’s license, fled from officers and had a concealed weapon.
The charges echo the circumstances of Thursday’s 11:45 a.m. traffic stop, from which Freeland bolted into a nearby wooded area.
By late afternoon Friday, crime scene technicians were working closely over Freeland’s body, which was to be sent to the medical examiner’s office. Judd said he expects a better identification to emerge.
In the meantime, Judd said, detectives are developing a picture of who Freeland was. They found no drugs in the rental car he was driving, but they think he has ties to a drug ring.
And Judd said two cell phones he dropped and a “book of associates” detectives found are providing a number of leads.
The Ambush
Judd provided more details Friday about what might have happened in the woods when Speirs, Williams and Diogi went in after Freeland as other deputies ringed the area.
It appears Williams and Diogi tracked Freeland almost too successfully and that the dense vegetation worked to their disadvantage.
“They had run him into an area so thick that he couldn’t move,” Judd said.
With nowhere left to run, Freeland holed up behind a tree in much the same fashion that he did Friday morning. And then he struck in what Judd called “an ambush.” Judd said Williams and Diogi were too good at their jobs to have been overcome by anything other than an ambush.
Detectives think Freeland used a 9 mm Taurus handgun to kill Williams and his dog. That gun also was found on Freeland after he was killed. Detectives still are not saying where Williams was hit, but they have said he was struck with several shots and likely died instantly.
Speirs was wounded in the leg shortly afterward in an exchange of fire, and the shooter fled.
Speirs was treated at a Lakeland hospital Thursday but not admitted. It wasn’t immediately clear which weapon Freeland used on Speirs or when he took Williams’ weapon.
However he did it, Freeland managed to kill a seasoned deputy and his highly trained K-9, take his gun and ammunition, wound another deputy and successfully elude capture in a fairly confined space for almost 24 hours.
It shows a capability of cool, tactical thinking, sheriff’s officials said.
“It makes you wonder,” said Gary Hester, sheriff’s office chief of staff, when asked whether detectives think Freeland might have received formal military training of some kind.
Hester said there is no evidence of that. But he said one source in the investigation says Freeland might have trained informally at a Lakeland gun range.
A Violent, Vital Confrontation
Judd said Friday that the key to getting Freeland was how quickly deputies and police officers sealed off both the wooded area and the wider swath of north Lakeland that remained locked down throughout the manhunt.
It helped that deputies were on scene backing up the search for Freeland when the shooting started.
Judd singled out the Lakeland Police Department for praise. He cited the agency’s quick arrival at Interstate 4, cutting Freeland’s access to the north.
He said two Lakeland police officers who exchanged gunfire with Freeland just after the deputies were shot might have staved off a worse crisis. They forced him back into the woods and away from an elderly couple’s home at 1446 Wabash Ave., the very northern end of the road.
“He would have got in there and hurt that couple and got himself a car,” Hester said.
On Friday, Paul Prebor, 76, the owner of the home, casually retold his brush with death and showed off bullet marks - one coming, one going - in the eaves of his outdoor laundry room and shed near the rear of his house.
Nearby, sheriff’s administrators picked up spent canisters of tear gas that still gave off enough odor to make eyes water. Officers had used them Thursday, thinking Freeland might have run from the gunfire into the house as Prebor and his wife fled.
The Prebors live several hundred yards north of the site of the traffic stop and even closer to the spot where Freeland was killed.
Paul Prebor said he didn’t hear the shooting of the deputies, but he quickly noticed the commotion that followed and came out to see what was going on. He saw officers with guns drawn telling him to go back inside, where his wife was, and lock his doors.
After a few moments informing neighbors, Prebor was preparing to go inside when Lakeland policeofficers Jeff Birdwell, a detective, and Jose Bosque pulled up.
They got out, Prebor said, and one asked a strange question: “Does that black man in your backyard have any reason to be there?”
‘He Was Tall’
Rather than answer, Prebor, who was facing away from his backyard, said he instinctively turned. He saw Freeland, gun drawn, run into the covered opening of the shed, step in front of a barbecue grill and open fire at him and the officers. They were standing about 75 yards away, near the street.
Prebor said he thinks Freeland fired twice and that the officers quickly fired twice in return. Lakeland police spokesman Jack Gillen, who identified the officers, said both got off rounds, but he did not know how many.
All the shots, from both sides, missed. Freeland bolted back into the Prebors’ backyard. Prebor rushed to retrieve his wife, who was in the kitchen behind an open window, and take her across the street to a neighbor’s home.
Prebor said he saw Freeland for about three seconds.
“It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to be scared. I’m not that emotional about things,” he said.
His impression of Freeland? “I thought he was tall.”
That’s accurate. Freeland’s Polk arrest record lists him at 6-foot-2. At least one of his bullets struck the inside eave of the shed on its way out, splintering wood and perhaps altering the path of the bullet.
Though officers weren’t able to nab or kill Freeland there, they managed to push him away from the area where he might most easily have found hostages and likely back into the brush, sheriff’s officials said.
“We felt confident that he hadn’t gotten out of there,” Hester said. “We felt he was pinned down.”
They were confident enough that Thursday night the SWAT leaders from the various agencies on scene began to plan the meticulous search of the woods that would find Freeland on Friday morning.
They would find and kill him within sight of Prebor’s home.
Editor Dave Nicholson contributed to this report. Reporter Billy Townsend can be reached at (863) 284-1409 or wtownsend@tampatrib.com.
UNFOLDING EVENTS
Thursday
11:45 a.m.: Deputy Douglas Speirs pulls over a driver for speeding at 10th Street and Wabash Avenue. The driver runs into dense woods northwest of the traffic stop scene. Backup deputies arrive to surround the area. After several minutes, Speirs, Deputy Vernon Matthew “Matt” Williams and his dog partner, Diogi, go into the woods.
12:30 p.m.: The driver fires at the deputies, killing Williams and Diogi. Speirs is wounded in the leg. The shooter flees.
About 1 p.m.: As deputies and police begin swarming the area, the man is seen in the backyard of a home at 1446 N. Wabash. He exchanges fire with two Lakeland police officers. No one is hit. The man disappears again.
4 p.m.: Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announces Williams and Diogi are dead. A massive manhunt spreads across much of north Lakeland.
About 7 p.m.: Students from nearby Kathleen High School are taken by bus, under armed guard, to a north Lakeland church, where parents finally are allowed to pick them up.
9 p.m.: Judd gives his final briefing of the night and warns, “We’re prepared for a gunfight if he wants a gunfight.”
Friday
9:35 a.m.: A patrol of SWAT officers walking shoulder to shoulder near the scene of the shootings happens upon the driver, who had buried himself beneath a fallen tree overgrown with brush. The man raises only one hand. The officers, seeing a gun, open fire, killing the man. Moments later a cheer is heard at the law enforcement command center near Kathleen High.
9:50 a.m.: Judd announces suspect is dead. He was carrying a .45-caliber handgun thought to be Williams’ service weapon.
YOU GUYS HAVE NO CLUE WHAT “REALLY” HAPPENED. ALL YOU KNOW IS THE STUFF TOLD THROUGH THE MEDIA WHICH IS NORMALLY TWISTED AT BEST. YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF THE FEAR OF BLACK MALES WHEN STOPPED BY THE POLICE (YOUR LIFE IS ON THE LINE). IT IS NORMALLY A VERY AGGRESSIVE SITUATION. I AM NOT TAKING ANYONE’S SIDE HOWEVER, I AM HIGHLY CONFIDENT THAT EVERYTHING STATED THROUGH THE MEDIA IS NOT 100% ACCURATE.
I hope that all you guys on here with the “he deserved to die and suffer” remember this nonsence when you are judged by the “only” person that has the authority to give and take lives.
When you see a police officer take the time to say thank you,shake their hand or just a smile.You don’t know what a difference it may make in their day.The same situation just happened in Western new york and they lost two very fine State troopers.Please know they are not the BAD GUYS—they do what many people would run from—their oath is to serve,protect and defend and we are the ones they do it for.Some members of my family are inlaw enforcement retired and active and I cherish the stories they tell of the good people out there.And my heart is heavy when a tragedy happens such as this.In the end if anything we all should be grateful for their dedication to all of us.God bless you Deputy Williams and your K9,your family is in the hearts and prayers of many people.
is the swat going to be sued by the family?
For all those people who are claiming that RACE was a factor here…..
I’d like to know what you would think if Deputy Matt Williams had been a black Sheriff’s Deputy. Explain that to me. You can’t, can you?
So with that in mind STOP crying about this being a racial incident.
An assault on a police officer is an assault on every single law abiding citizen. It is an assault on civilization, law and order, and society! Let us remember too, that the canine officer murdered in this attack gave his life to serve his human companion. Animals trust in us to care for them… we knowingly lead them into danger. Thank every animal you see for their unending sacrifice for us.
THis whole story is very sad.
I agree and disagree with about every post, except the far out, brainless ones.
This suspect sealed his own fate, even until the end, he could have raised both of his hands, and been alive, but he chose. He received the consequences of his actions. I teach my three year old son that choices have consequences. At the same time, while the man acted like an animal, he was a human being. I think it’s sad that he lived the way he lived, died the way he died, and now has left behind two grieving families.
The wages of sin is truly death, eternal death, sometimes earthly death, and many times the phsysical death of others.
The police department did do a good job of keeping others safe. My husband works about two miles from where this happened. I am thankful for the police departments, Polk county and other departments that came to help.
My prayers are with both families tonight.
A great ending to a tragic story!
I want to thank all of our law enforcement, everywhere for their continued sacrifices. My heart and prayers are with those that are mourning this ultimate sacrifice. I only hope the perp realized the error of his ways at the last minute and sought forgiveness from God. To the officer’s family, keep strong. Those of you who are critical of what the officers and SWAT did, you don’t have the GUTS to be out there yourself, standing up for what’s RIGHT!!!!!!
some poeple are so sad i’m not happy about some of things i have read on this page they were doing there duty and one has lost his life and his family has lost a love one and the department has lost a friend i’m gald the bad guy dead he want hurt anymore people out there
I would have been great to have this thug at least suffer in extreme pain (like a bullit to his spine)before he is totally blown away.
From reading some of these comments, it sounds like unfortunately,we still are being blessed with scum of the earth..or just trash! What kind of person is going to make the comments that this so called Hank Earl Carr made….just plain scum! and for this Tony Jenkings character, what are you thinking? I am so sick of the racist crying. If it would have been a black officer this guy shot and killed then it would not be an issue..but only people like you seem to make it that way!!! Pretty sad. I think you and this other idiot that is writing under Hank E Carr are two very sick individuals that need to learn some respect for the people that protect and serve us everyday or either get the hell out of our state and country!!!! God Bless The Williams Family and all of our officers!
My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the slain police officer and to the family of the slain shooter. He was wrong for what he did but he was still a human being and someone out there tonight is grieving his death. I am shocked by some of the comments I read on here celebrating a human life lost. It’s all tragic! Oh and the comment made by Jeff B about fried chicken and watermelon just goes to show that racism is still alive and that he is ignorant with a capital I-G-N-O-R-A-N-T!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Hank Earl or whatever your real name is,
They’ll be after you next. And hopefully with the same outcome.
I am so glad to see all the support for the Law Enforcement agencies in Lakeland and for all those who came to help. My prayers are with the Williams family who lost their father and husband along with their other family memeber, DIOGI. It touches my heart to hear that Deputy Williams will be buried with his dog. Thanks Sheriff Judd for making our city safe for my children. You did an outstanding job.
And please everyone online, lets not make this about race. This was about a human being who should have been home with this family tonight. I’m glad justice was done.
I do not know what happened. All I know is that a violent killer will never be able to murder anyone again. Thank God for the Blue line that separates us from the animals. I recommend that honest citizens take precautions to protect ourselves from the animals that are outnumbering and outgunning our officers.
You may be the only protection your family has until the police can respond. Thanks to the ACLU and liberal judges, the criminals have more rights than we do!
Matt Mason of Casselberry needs an education himself.
Many law enforcement officers have college degrees. My husband is currently working on a master’s degree while working as a full time police officer.
Your ignorance and stupidity are obvious.
parade his corpse through the streets in celebration. Display his head in the town square atop a wooden pike.
Matt Mason…what a jerk you are. I only hope that you never need a police officer. I have a very close relative with the Polk Co Sheriff’s Dept and let me assure you, he definitely has a better IQ than you. Law enforcement did a great job and did what needed to be done. These guys put there lives on the line every day whether it be a “routine” traffic stop or a major drug bust for all of us..including Matt Mason. Thanks Guys Job well done. My thoughts and prayers are with the Williams family.
Glad that some garbage was taken off the streets at minimal taxpayer expense. Condolences to the fallen officer’s family and fellows. I wish we could do it that way here in the p.c. capital of the U.S.A.
Maybe this perp could feel the heat around the corner and felt boxed in and had no other choice but to put the officer down!
I would like to point out that the fact that this man was a criminal to start with has everything to do with the killing of the officer. The killer has trained his whole life to defy and to deceive and obviously harm and the officer was trained to stop those types of individuals.
You can not put into words, no matter how you try, the type of person that puts their life on the line EVERYDAY,
EVERY MINUTE WITH NO OTHER GOAL BUT TO MAKE THIS WORLD BETTER.
GOD BLESS EVERY POLICEMAN AND WOMAN AND EVERY SOLDIER THAT WAKES UP EVERYDAY NOT KNOWING WHAT IT BRINGS.
Hey Tony Jenkings, You must be black sitting in some hud housing blaming a white man who is paying taxes that put a roof over your head. You have no remorse for a nother human being who was doing his job. I hate to break it to you but there are black cops out there, the Chief of Police is BLACK where i’m from and Tony I"m not from Africa I’m from Florida so look at the world around you alittle bit slavery has been over for awhile and a black cop would have done his job just like a white one!
God Bless All Law Enforcement and their families. We should all thank God for those who protect all of us from criminals. Thank you to all of the Officers who found and stopped this evil person. My prayers are with the Officer who was shot in the leg and with both families.
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Posted by William Devine, Jackson Michigan on 09/30 at 01:00 AM
It’s strange that the press doesn’t mention that Freeland was an illegal from Jamica, Where in the hell was the border patrol, If he had been sent back where he belonged a good cop and dog would still be alive.