BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – News 6 has obtained video from a witness to a pursuit that ended in Marion County with the death of a Titusville man.
The pursuit started Friday in Citrus County after deputies accused Skyler Wentworth, 33, of fleeing from a traffic stop.
The chase ended in Marion County along Highway 200 after Wentworth crashed his vehicle into a power pole, deputies explained. Investigators said he got out of the car with a rifle in hand, prompting deputies to fatally shoot him.
The woman who recorded gunfire on her phone asked not to be named, but she also told News 6 reporter James Sparvero that she sends her condolences to Wentworth’s mother, Tammy Hathcote.
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Sparvero spoke with Hathcote, who lives in Tennessee, on Monday.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why couldn’t they have Tased him? Why shoot him?”
In the interview Monday, Hathcote said she had already seen a still frame from the video. She believes that part of the video shows her son was giving up before deputies shot him.
“You can tell there’s no guns around him,” Hathcote said. “He’s already surrendered and on his hands and knees.”
Deputies said Wentworth had an arrest history in Citrus County going back more than 15 years, and he threw a bag of pills out the window after driving away from the traffic stop on Friday.
In its Facebook update last weekend, the Citrus sheriff said those pills were fentanyl.
“I mean, he had drug problems, I know that,” Wentworth’s mother said. “But he was shot while he was surrendering.”
Through email, a Citrus County sergeant said no one was available Thursday for an interview about the shooting or the video.
Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the use of the force.
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