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Officer who killed armed suspect is cleared
By JENNIFER LIBERTO Hernando County sheriff's Lt. James Blade was justified in the fatal shooting of a robber who took a hostage at the Steak n Shake on U.S. 19 in Spring Hill last month, a state and county investigation has found. Blade, 50, of Brooksville shot Anthony Dean Jessie, 41, of Inverness on Jan. 9 during a botched robbery. Jessie had pulled a knife on a customer. Jessie died from the head wound. Blade, commander of the agency's SWAT team and a former Marine Corps infantryman, was reinstated to full duty Feb. 12 after the Sheriff's Office completed its internal investigation. It found that Blade had broken no policies. He had been on paid administrative leave. "It's a pretty cut and dry," Lt. Joe Paez, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said Wednesday. "Witnesses said that (Jessie) was going after the guy, and he had a pretty good blade." After reviewing the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, prosecutor Donald Scaglione also decided that Blade "was within his legal right and justified in his use of force." Jessie had told his brother-in-law, Michael Herman Nessmith, that he intended to rob the store after an evening of drinking beer and tequila at bars and strip clubs, Nessmith told investigators. Nessmith drove Jessie to the Steak n Shake because Jessie said he was hungry. When they arrived, Jessie asked Nessmith to back into a parking spot, and Jessie pulled a gun out of the glove compartment and loaded it. "He loaded the gun and he put it in there. And I'm like, 'Tony, what are you doing?' " Nessmith told authorities. "Well, then he pointed it at me and told me to just shut up and do what he said. . . . He said, 'I'm going to rob this place.' " Nessmith took the car keys, went inside the restaurant and sat for about 30 minutes before going back outside. While Jessie wasn't paying attention, Nessmith grabbed the gun from inside the car and hid it in his own pants. Then, Nessmith went inside the back door of the restaurant to warn employees about the impending robbery. Employees called deputies right before Jessie entered, records show. In an interview with FDLE investigators, Blade said he drove to the Steak n Shake after hearing about a disturbance in the parking lot. By the time he arrived, Jessie had gone inside. Blade told investigators he recalled something called "active shooter philosophy." "You don't wait and allow someone with a knife to start injuring people. So, I was in a position where I had to go in," he said. "I went into the restaurant, and immediately I confronted him." Blade told Jessie to drop the knife. Jessie walked toward the back door, which was clear and unobstructed, Blade told investigators. Then Jessie turned left and grabbed the hostage, pulling the knife close. Blade told the robber to drop the weapon twice more. Then he shot one time, "aiming for the center of his head," he told investigators. Blade was among the founding members of the sheriff's SWAT team, which he joined in 1990. He has been the subject of five internal affairs investigations since he joined the force in 1985. In one in 1996, he was suspended without pay after a "flash bang" went off before a citizen training academy session. Blade was holding the tool, used to disorient suspects, when another officer yanked the device out of his hand and pulled the pin. The flash injured a nearby detective. His personnel file also includes an inch-thick section filled with commendations from supervisors and residents. Calls to Jessie's friends and family were not returned. Armour Sylvers, 69, was not available for comment Wednesday evening, but his wife, who was sleeping the night of the robbery, said she was glad to hear that the government inquiry into Blade's actions had been dropped. "He saved my husband's life, and I'm very grateful to him for that," Frances Sylvers said. In an unrelated internal affairs investigation, a dispatch officer was cleared of any wrongdoing in a late December incident. Jessica Jernigan had taken in a lost dog that was reported to the Sheriff's Office at Christmastime. The dog should have gone to Animal Control, where its owner had reported it missing. The dog was later returned to the owner. The investigation found that although she had "unselfish intentions" by taking a personal interest in the dog, she exceeded her job description and put the Sheriff's Office in a "potentially embarrassing situation."
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