Lewis made it clear during a Thursday morning press conference that he accepts blame for Tuesday’s death of a beloved community figure.
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“Officer Coel remains on administrative leave while the investigation into this incident gathers more details into how this tragedy happened”.
Neither he nor Punta Gorda police spokeswoman Lt. Katie Heck answered questions after the conference.
“I think this guy is reckless and irresponsible and shouldn’t be around firearms period”, he said.
The chief said the revolver is kept in a safe place that can be accessed only by a few officers.
Coel, Lewis said, was “very grief-stricken”.
“She volunteered to be the victim in this mock shooting”. “You can’t even put live ammunition in them”.
“It’s just a horrific time for all of us”, Lewis said. “But then I saw blood”.
Officer Coel had made headlines in recent months, after video of his K-9, Spirit, was posted on YouTube, showing the dog attacking a shirtless man on a bicycle for almost two minutes during an arrest last October.
The Sun previously reported in June that Coel had had two excessive force complaints in Miramar. While that city’s agency determined that he had committed two policy violations, it concluded the pair of allegations were unfounded. He began working at the PGPD in March 2014.
The police officer has been identified as Lee Coel.
“This should never have happened”, Weinberg said.
“Mary Knowlton is a phenomenal person in this community”.
“I was demanding that he be fired months ago, and I was warning people he was going to kill somebody”, Weinberg told The News-Press.
There was no immediate response from Coel or Lewis to Weinberg’s assertions. A couple of weeks later, Officer Coel was forced to resign. “I told everyone this was a bad officer”. According to the network police chief Lewis said the case is in civil court.
Police Chief Tom Lewis took complete responsibility today for the tragic death of a woman during a citizen training exercise.
“If it had been a civilian involved in the shooting he’d be all over the newspaper”, McFarland said.
Paquin said FDLE investigators interviewed her and all the other participants of the Citizens Academy. “That was important to her”, Hartwigsen said.
A Florida woman is dead after a fatal shooting during a citizen-police training exercise.
“I just can’t believe she’s gone, but I have to learn to live with that”, said Gary Knowlton, Mary Knowlton’s husband. She said Coel frequently gave department presentations and tours, “specifically role-playing in these shoot/don’t shoot scenarios”.
“She was the salt of the earth, a attractive soul and the kindest woman you would know”, she said. She died shortly after the incident at a nearby hospital. The police were in shock, too. No live rounds are supposed to be fired, though. He was “devastated”, they said.
A Punta Gorda lawyer said Wednesday that Coel shouldn’t have been on the Punta Gorda force.
Knowlton, who served as president and later a board member of the Friends of the Punta Gorda Library, was a frequent attendee of community events and well-known among city leaders.
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The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting. “We took the K9, Spirit, out of service during the investigation, and brought in someone from the outside to conduct it”.
