Deputy shot by man during a fiery standoff over stolen cigarettes, Florida cops say
A small theft at a Florida gas station turned into a “lengthy standoff” between an armed suspect and several deputies, according to a sheriff’s office.
The standoff, which was prompted over stolen cigarettes, lasted several hours from when deputies were first called to the theft reported at 4:30 a.m. Dec. 20, according to a Volusia Sheriff’s Office Facebook post.
By the end of the standoff, the man’s home was up in flames and he asked for a presidential pardon, according to the sheriff’s office.
A Wawa employee initially called the sheriff’s office early Wednesday morning to report a man who was suspected of shoplifting from the Deltona gas station, the sheriff’s office said.
The customer had reached over the cashier counter and grabbed cigarettes, the sheriff’s office said, and he had a knife on him.
But when deputies arrived at the scene, the suspect took off in his vehicle, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies managed to deflate the suspect’s tires, according to the sheriff’s office, but he still slowly drove back to his home and refused to come out.
In the only exchange of gunfire during the standoff, the man shot at deputies from his car, Sheriff Michael Chitwood said in a Dec. 20 news conference recorded by FOX 35 Orlando.
A bullet grazed a deputy — a recent 25-year-old transfer from New York — in the face, Chitwood said. Another deputy was hit by glass fragments in the face during the gun battle, the sheriff said.
Another bullet hit the glass of a barricade shield held by a deputy, Chitwood said, which was a close call.
“My sergeant would have took a shot to the head,” Chitwood said in the news conference.
A SWAT truck repositioned the man’s car into his garage so he couldn’t drive away, the sheriff’s office said.
Despite numerous attempts to negotiate, he soon got out of his vehicle and began setting fires inside the garage, Chitwood said.
The man then crawled into the attic before falling inside his home, the sheriff said.
The man’s family was in the home when he arrived, and they were soon evacuated, Chitwood said. The man’s 21-year-old son spoke to deputies about the suspect, the sheriff said, and family recounted that the father was acting “extremely erratic” over the past six months.
The family tried to hide many of the man’s firearms from him, Chitwood said, but they told deputies he still was able to keep a revolver on him.
The suspect was identified as Dempsey Hadley, who was a longtime city employee of Deland, according to the sheriff’s office.
The City of Deland confirmed to McClatchy News that Hadley was a former employee who retired in April 2020. He was the facilities superintendent upon retirement, according to the city’s public safety information officer, and he worked at the city since 1988.
At some point during the incident, his vehicle burst into flames, spreading the fire throughout the house, Chitwood said.
Ammunition in the home, which Hadley’s family said he had a lot of, started exploding in the blaze, the sheriff said.
The home had turned into a “complete inferno,” Chitwood said.
But for about 45 minutes, Hadley paced back and forth between the inside of the house and a balcony on the second floor, according to the sheriff’s office. He came out to tell deputies a few times that he wouldn’t come out and would “fight” them, Chitwood said.
At certain points of the standoff, deputies thought Hadley was dead because of how much fire and smoke was billowing in the home, Chitwood said.
But the house fire — and its “really thick smoke” — did not kill Hadley, according to the sheriff’s office.
“The smoke that was filled in that house and the flames, how anybody can survive that without going down for smoke inhalation tells you what the mental state of this guy is,” the sheriff said.
The man eventually came crashing to the ground when deputies pulled out the studs holding the back porch, causing it to topple down, Chitwood said.
As Hadley was taken into custody, he made an initial request of Chitwood, the sheriff said.
“The first thing he says to me is ‘call the president, he’s going to pardon me for this,’” Chitwood said in the news conference.
Hadley had a couple injuries from a sheriff’s office K-9 who bit the man while he was on the ground because he wouldn’t take his hands out of his pocket, Chitwood said. He was treated by EMS, he said.
The deputy who was hit by a bullet was also discharged from the hospital the same day, according to the sheriff.
“It was a successful end to a long, long, long night,” Chitwood said.
Deltona is about 30 miles northeast of Orlando.
This story was originally published December 21, 2023 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Deputy shot by man during a fiery standoff over stolen cigarettes, Florida cops say."
