PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Video pictures inside of the principle Surf Style store on Clearwater Beach provides context to Tuesday night time’s fatal shooting.
Clearwater Police Department launched the video pictures Thursday. In the video, Jonathan Stanley and a chum stroll throughout the retailer.
In the video, Stanley’s good friend is observed getting punched. Clearwater Police Chief Daniel Slaughter says the person observed punching Stanley’s good friend used to be Rodney Sweeney.
“The victim and the suspect did not necessarily appear to know each other at this particular point. There was some type of verbal contact that may have occurred throughout the day that we’re still getting to the bottom of,” Chief Slaughter mentioned.
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Police say the battle ended on the second one flooring of the shop. Chief Slaughter says that is when Stanley pulled out a gun and fired 3 times, shooting Sweeney two times.
“There is this battery that occurred, but this battery is no excuse for pulling out a firearm. The behavior of which Jonathan did and based on even some of his movements before the battery occurring, it appears very likely he intended to utilize that firearm from the get-go,” he mentioned.
Chief Slaughter mentioned Stanley concealed the gun within the retailer after the shooting. The Chief confirmed a video of Stanley hiding between a garments rack himself.
“The brother of the deceased locates a firearm after checking on his brother. He starts to run after and try to locate Jonathan, the person who killed his brother. From that point, the brother returns to his home. He was cooperative with us. He did have the firearm. So we believe we have recovered the murder weapon,” he added.
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Police say the person with Stanley, the one that used to be punched, isn’t dealing with fees. However, police say a person used to be arrested for serving to disguise Stanley or even transferring his automotive.
“Based on his statement and his information he provided the detective, he was well aware that this homicide had happened. He had seen the media footage and the pictures and knew what occurred and knew and intentionally assisted him in this endeavor,” Chief Slaughter mentioned.
The shooting comes right through a hectic weekend. Ryan Reifsnyder is in Clearwater for Spring Break.
“I’ve been here before and there’s been a lot more this year than previous years,” Reifsnyder mentioned.
Chief Slaughter says Clearwater Beach is a secure position regardless of the shooting and different crime calls this week.
“We’re actually trending much lower on crimes on Clearwater Beach. And in fact, even with these incidences, we’re still below our normal levels from 2022,” Chief Slaughter mentioned.
Reifsnyder says the additional presence brings him peace of thoughts.
“That really does make a difference,” he mentioned.
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Chief Slaughter says it is not simply the additional presence that made a distinction in fixing the homicide.
“I don’t want to diminish the great work that the detective does, leveraging that technology, or what I would refer to as the air traffic controller, which is that crime analyst that is just, you know, allowing us to move at the speed of light to close these things,” Chief Slaughter mentioned.
Inside the Real-Time Crime lab, analysts and detectives can faucet into all town cameras and a few trade cameras. In addition, that lab supplies speedy solutions to assist solution some questions.
“Utilizing the network of video cameras, databases, license plate reader technology and our crime analysts that work in our Real-Time Operations Center. We very early on from this video footage, obviously were able to get a general description of Jonathan. The analysts were able to start combing through video footage and very quickly identified video footage of him milling about throughout Clearwater Beach, which is certainly a much higher resolution video footage than that security footage from those from those videos; we were certainly able to give you good video footage to put out,” the Chief mentioned.