So what I would like to do is kind of recount the circumstances leading up to
this and what we're actually investigating out here. As many people
are now aware this started at the Lake Wales Police Department yesterday
morning, at around 5 30 AM where *** suspect had killed an entire family.
That family was *** 40 year old girlfriend of our suspect, Al Josephs.
Then three Children, the oldest 21 years old who was *** male, *** 17 year
old child and an 11 year old child. Again, that is being investigated by
the Lake Wales Police Department down in Polk County as *** part of their
investigation. They put out information and Bolos and their detectives and
investigators were brought to the city of Sanford. That was probably in the
early morning hours of this morning. Around two o'clock in the morning,
there was *** report of the suspect's vehicle being located directly across
from the Sunderland hotel. That vehicle was noticed *** couple of times it was
moved. And ultimately, the Lake Wales police officers, detectives and the
Sanford police detectives saw the suspect walking across the street and
around three o'clock in the morning contacted the Seminole County Sheriff's
office and Combined Municipality SWAT team *** moment there. Our SWAT team
consists of representatives from five of the seven municipalities. And when
we're fully staffed, we come together, we train, we work together. The SWAT
team arrived on scene at around six AM. And at the same time, court orders were
in the process of getting *** search warrant for the hotel. There was
ongoing negotiations by way of cell phone from the Lake Wales, police
officers who had already had somewhat of *** relationship during those
conversations, they were talking with the suspect's brother in the background,
they could hear the suspect. So there was *** pretty reliability confirmation
that he was at this location. And then ultimately, the Seminole County
Sheriff's office combined swat effort crisis negotiation team took over those
negotiations and at one time, they appeared to be pretty successful.
However, our suspect did at numerous times both with the Lake Wales police
investigators as well as Sanford and members of our crisis negotiation team
make the comment that this would end one of three ways. I'm going to kill
myself. You're going to kill me or I'm going to surrender. It seems like ***
natural three scenario way to end this thing. But the negotiations worked so
well. At one time, our team was able to convince the suspect to actually exit
the hotel room. Now he was staying in *** hotel directly next to his brother
that was in the hotel, we were able to convince the brother to come out. We
were able to take the brother to safety. He was no longer there and then the
negotiations were continuing for hours. I mean, the last thing we want to have
to do is use lethal force. Ideally, we would like to talk to somebody and
bring them into custody. At one time, we were able to talk him into putting
*** hand held firearm down. Again. We don't know the caliber of the gun. He
had *** handgun in his hand, he had *** handgun in his pocket at one time. And
as negotiations continue, we were able to get him to place the gun down on the
ground and step away from it as he stepped away from the firearm on the
ground, we utilize our SWAT team utilize what's called *** less lethal
option. It's *** 40 millimeter foam baton is called, it's *** projectile
that comes out that is not intended to create fatality or serious injuries,
just simply neutralize the threat to allow us to go in there and apprehend
the suspect. We successfully deployed that but it had little effect on the
suspect. The suspect immediately went for the gun on the ground. And at this
time, we don't know if he actually picked the gun up, put it in his hand,
but he was going for the firearm when four of our swat team members
opened. I'm sorry, three of our SWAT team members, one member of the
specialized unit of the Sanford Police Department opened fire neutralizing the
threat and the is now deceased. The people who fired were two members of
the Samoa County Sheriff's office, one member of the Altima Springs Police
Department and one member of the Sanford Police Department. That's why
Chief Cecil Smith. Chief James Riggs, great partners to our effort. Great
participants with the SWAT team were able to come over there as soon as the
suspect hit the ground. Our SWAT team operators moved in. This is an
incredibly difficult situation. One of our operators actually immediately
started to administer CPR to the descendant after the shooting, of
course, that was unsuccessful, but our operator was then covered in the
suspect's blood. And now we have asked to come in as we typically do to
conduct *** full and independent review in investigation of all the
circumstances leading up to this case. What we know about Al Joseph Stensen.
He's 38 years old. He has mild encounters with the criminal justice
system. Many people would say they're pretty significant. He's been arrested
*** couple of times for burglary. He's had *** couple of charges in the past
for domestic violence, but we're still gathering his complete history to find
out what was actually going on in all of the circumstances and details. As
you can imagine, we're going to wait until FD conducts that full independent
review of the circumstances which will include interviewing of our swat team
members, the folks that are out there. And at this point in time, there is no
threat to our community, any threat that was presented here was very
specific to the incidents occurring down at the Lake Wales area where the
initial incident occurred. And then of course, relocated up here. I want to
thank our partners. Of course, all of the some of the county municipalities,
of course, our partners at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that are
coming in and picking up this investigation and all of the people who
are helping put the dots together that may have seen suspicious activity,
notice the car that will kind of help us better understand what's going on in
the coming days. So that's *** high level report trying to kind of, I don't
know any of the other details surrounding the incident down in Polk
County. I think that the Lake Wales Police Department to speak to that at
this time. I'll turn it over to Chief Cecil Smith to see if he has anything
that he would like to add.
You know, it's *** great opportunity for us to show that the unified, the
unified that we have within Simo County. When we were locating this individual
at two o'clock this morning, our officers realized that something was
wrong and that immediately reached out to the Sheriff's Department to say, hey,
listen, we need to put something together to try to bring this to the
unfortunate end is that this individual chose to end it in *** manner in which
he did as the sheriff has indicated. It's still *** very active, active
investigation. Fdle is doing their part at this point. We're making sure that
our officers, the officers that were involved are being taken care of and we
will continue to provide the best service we possibly can here in
Seminole County, Sanford, we have no idea. He doesn't have any ties to the
city. What we know right now, there is no ties to the city at all. Was his
brother living in the hotel or was he staying there prior or did they both
come here together from what we have right now? It appears that they both
got here at the same time, any of his other family members here with him as
far as we know, it's just his brother.
We'll leave that up to the state's attorney to make that decision in order
to ring it up. Chief Slumberland Motel is *** bit of *** well known locally,
but it's not exactly, you know what you would imagine that somebody would pick
as their destination. So you just think that he was leaving the scene of
whatever occurred in Lake Wales and randomly picked that spot, Dave. I
think it's important to mention that his brother was already here. So he
went here because he's in the hotel room next to his brother Ok. So I guess
that wasn't clear to me. Why was his brother already here? His brother was
living here in the hotel. Yes. Oh, wait. So his brother was here prior, correct.
Him showing up this morning. Correct. Ok. Ok. Yes, that wasn't clear the
first time around. So he had *** family member already in Sanford at the
Slumberland and he reunited if you will with his brother. I would say he, he
was staying at the hotel as you know Summerland is *** day to day, week to
week type of hotel. So to say that he's *** resident, I would not classify him
as *** resident, but he was staying in *** hotel. But the brother was already
here long before whatever happened in Lake Wales. I'm going to say that's
correct. Yeah, I don't know that long before. I don't know that we know how
long he's been here but he was here. It wasn't ours. I don't know. Do you guys
know we don't know yet. Ok. We don't know yet how the other people who were
at the hotel when this happened. They evacuate what happened there?
Essentially, we had many of them stay in place, shelter in place. There were
*** couple of people who we moved out at the hotel when we felt that it was
safe enough to do. That
was the how would you describe the danger
considering that they had been in constant conversation with him? Both
inside and outside the hotel, we don't believe that there was that great of
*** threat, but we wanted to make sure that they were safe. So we did move
some of the individuals who we could, but those who are really connected to
that room, we made them shelter in place
you talking all about what happened at the circle. That one is still under
investigation. I have, I've been here since 5 30 this morning, mostly dealing
with this situation here. So as we get additional information, we'll put that
out. But that is *** homicide investigation unrelated to this, right?
It's still an ongoing investigation. So if you go and say it's *** shooting
unrelated to this completely unrelated to what we have going on here.
You know, I do want to wrap just by again, commending the actions of these
officers that are out here. You know, we never take for granted the way that
they train the way they prepare. Nobody wants to come into work on *** day like
this and actually have to use lethal force. But the way they responded, the
way that they put themselves in harm's way in work is *** blessing to our
community and our organizations. And from our perspective, they handled this
thing with textbook precision negotiations going on, tried to
neutralize the threat, got him to walk away from the weapon, used *** less
lethal option. He went for the gun, they put him down and then immediately
started to administer CPR to him. That is *** lot for these folks to take on.
And I think that our community should be incredibly grateful that men and
women will take on this career and this passion to be able to do it. People are
wondering if he put his firearm down. The,
this guy is *** murderer, *** threat and he did not fully comply with the
orders to walk far enough away from the firearm where we felt like he could not
get to it in *** matter of time where he could present *** threat to the
officers that were on scene. This wasn't *** scenario that he put the
firearm down. He placed his hands behind his back. He walked *** distance
away from the firearm. Should those circumstances have occurred? We would
have taken him into custody. He was close enough proximity to the firearm
where he still presented *** threat to the people that were on scene.