not ready all right good morning I'm a Pinellas County Sheriff Bob walterian with me is St Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway this is a Pinellas County use of deadly force task force investigation being led by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office because it involves a shooting by St Petersburg Police Department Officer by now you all are aware of the protocols here in Pinellas County about how we conduct these investigations so I'm going to run through for you what happened as we know it at this moment as always with these types of situations and these investigations is that I'm going to tell you what I know based upon the preliminary investigation that's been conducted up to this point everything is subject to change and based upon additional witness interviews interviews of the officers the physical evidence that we find at the scene Etc but I think it's very important that we get out as much as we possibly can to tell you all and through you tell the public what happened but everybody has to keep in mind that this is preliminary and it is all subject to change as the investigation continues so what we know is about 3 40 a.m this morning the St Petersburg Police Department was dispatched to a vehicle hit and run it was an unattended vehicle that was struck in the area of 13th Avenue North and 50th Street the bumper to the suspect vehicle was laying on the roadway and the vehicle left the scene so there's a car parked on the street it was hit by a suspect vehicle the bumper came off it's laying in the roadway and there's a tag on the bumper that's laying in the roadway from the suspect View St Petersburg Police Department's called the officers ran the tag the tag came back registered to a Mary and the last name is spandudis s-p-a-n-d-o-u-d-i-s with an address of 1225 58th Street North Apartment 204 a which is the apartment complex directly behind me the officers because it was a hit and run and having the bumper at the scene first came here to the apartment knocked on the door because they wanted to find out before they went to the scene if it was a stolen car or who was driving the car or find out more about it so they knocked on the door here and they got no answer and it didn't look like anybody was there the officers went over to the scene at 13th Avenue North and 50th Street and conducted their investigation based upon that investigation they came back over here to the apartment behind me at again at 12 25 58th Street North Apartment 204a they knocked on the door again and did not get any answer they used their flashlights to look in the window they saw in there that there was a wheelchair they saw some crutches and they saw that the male was stacked up outside and they then called and were able to determine that Mary spandutus whose residences is doesn't live here now she's in the nursing facility here in St Petersburg they were able to contact her and she said that her son Goss same last name spandutus is a white male date of birth of 725 59 he's 63 years old that he lives here and that he's disabled and the last time that she had any contact with him was this past Thursday on Thanksgiving Day she was concerned because nobody had had any contact with him they described what they found which was the mail stacked up there was no answer the wheelchair being there the crutches being there and she was concerned for his safety due to the lack of communication and the circumstances that were observed she asked the officers to go in and check on his welfare to check on Gus and make sure that he was okay the officers again tried to make contact by knocking on the door and knocks into presence with police officers they didn't get any response they got a maintenance person from the apartment complex who tried to use a key to gain access they couldn't do that the person couldn't open the door so they called the St Petersburg fire department the St Petersburg fire department came over and the Saint Petersburg fire department arrived here at about 6 10 a.m and they were able to open the door it was a force entry to the door to open the door again the officers identified themselves went into the apartment when they went into the apartment didn't see anybody in the living room area and they're announcing themselves nobody's coming out they routed a quarter into the bedroom and it was they rounded the corner into the bedroom they saw a gus spandudas sitting in a chair uh Gus bandutas was sitting there made a comment to the officers that he wanted to commit suicide the officers knew that there were other people in the apartment because they could see some feet and legs in an adjacent bedroom so they had multiple people in multiple rooms and there's two officers the officers that were here and that went inside the first is St Petersburg Police Officer Jace Morrow m-o-r-r-o-w and the other one is James D Maria d-e-m-a-r-i-a officer officer Morrow I was keeping an eye on uh Gus spandudis and there's another person who was in the apartment who came outside I'm sorry came out of the bedroom and that is Dominic Messina m-e-s-s-i-n-a he's a white male 9 10 of 93. so officer Morrow is trying to deal with both spandutus and Messina at the same time while officer Di Maria is dealing with another subject Michael Redmond 424-92 who's in another back bedroom so he's keeping an eye on both of them they're trying to figure out what they have at first officer Morrow did not see spandudas with a gun in his hand he was making statements about wanting to commit suicide and then as he's going back and forth between the two subjects is the spandudas takes a gun out he had it someplace either tucked down in the chair or someplace he picked the gun up and pointed it at officer Morrow officer Morrow told him to drop the gun he refused to drop the gun and raise it again at officer more officer more fired and spandudas is deceased so that's what we know at this point uh it was a hit and run that turned into a check on the welfare as the officers go in uh spandudas is sitting in the chair at some point he produces a gun it looks like to me and I'll have Sergeant Cindy give you a photograph of it looks like to me it looks like it's probably a four inch barrel 22 with black grips on it that he pointed at officer Morrow again officer Moore fired in defense because he told him to drop the gun and he kept raising the gun at officer more the other two people Messina and Redmond um our Witnesses at this point I don't know that there's any criminal action on their part other than probably one of the two of them was driving the car that was engaged in the hit and run so we're conducting the hit and run investigation which is separate from this check on the welfare that um turned into the officer involved shooting so that's what we know at this point again we're going to continue to conduct witness interviews Look at video physical evidence anything changes we'll let you know I don't anticipate that we'll have any more updates probably until tomorrow and that would probably only be if the facts change at all there's something more that we need to get out okay what's that it was unattended vehicle unattended vehicle so it was a car that was parked on the street so whoever was driving the car uh probably one of those two other guys probably not spending to do this was probably one of the other two uh and we found the car the car is parked with the bumper missing on it in an alley about two blocks to the South and to the west or to the east here so we found the car and they probably did the hitting around back here parked the car in the alley went to the apartment one inside locked the door when the cops knocked on the door they didn't answer it's probably one of those too but we haven't determined that at this point so the one guy spanduous lives here Messina doesn't live here uh and Redmond uh he doesn't live here but he was quote staying here the last address that we had for Redmond was over on the east coast in Martin County in Stuart Florida but we really don't know much about him again we're going to be conducting interviews with them and we'll find out more information but Messina does live here apparently with spandudas there is body camera video uh I haven't seen it yet um again that's part of what I'm telling you before we have an opportunity to even see that or to conduct in-depth interviews of anybody so we'll be looking at the body camera there is body worn camera video though yes well normal Protocols are to the normal protocols I'm sure will be followed by the St Pete Police Department [Music] we haven't gotten there yet I don't I don't know there's the answer to that yeah no no again all preliminary that'll certainly be part of the investigation we'll want to know everything that we can find out about spandu is about uh Messina about Redmond criminal histories histories of mental health issues with all of them any prior calls for service all of that'll be part of the investigation but again this is only right now a couple hours old mail stacked up or where I mean is that is that what triggered that concern all the above the officers communicated to her and again that is Gus bandutas mother Mary spandudis who is in the nursing home and they communicated what they saw there uh with the mail stacked up uh again there are some other indicators that were still trying to flush out that there was a problem in there I don't want to discuss that at this point because um again it's preliminary about some things that they saw that indicated that he might have been deceased in there or in trouble but medically in trouble in there that was having some sort of a medical issue and there were three or four things that were said to her uh and the fact that she hadn't heard from him which was unusual for her not to have heard from him since Thursday since Thanksgiving Day which led to her concern and she asked the officers please go in and check on my son so that's why they were doing it what's that yes so I don't know uh you know again we don't I don't know other than he was sitting in a chair I can tell you from being in there the wheelchair was in the living room area the crutches were out there so it looked like he was ambulatory to some degree how much I don't what type of vehicle was involved in the Run was it the I mean they're photographing the bumper in front of the Range Rover there is that it no no no it's a um I I've got it but it's a the vehicle was registered here anyway it's you can't see the vehicle from here it's a few blocks away did the mom say that London um they're interviewing her right now to get that information they're in the process of interviewing her as we speak all right thanks everybody thank you