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CHRIS TISCH and LEANORA MINAIThe state attorney's ruling on 17-year-old Marquell McCullough's shooting draws more outrage and questions.
ST. PETERSBURG - State Attorney Bernie McCabe has determined two Pinellas sheriff's deputies were justified in shooting to death 17-year-old Marquell McCullough earlier this month.
Deputies David Antolini and Nelson DeLeon fired a combined 15 times at a pickup McCullough was driving, striking the teen nine times.
Sheriff's officials said McCullough smashed the pickup into DeLeon's cruiser, tried to clip Antolini, then headed toward another car.
Although deputies thought they had seen McCullough dealing drugs earlier that night, the investigation revealed it probably wasn't him, but a man who looked similar and also drove a pickup.
Sheriff's officials now will begin an internal investigation to determine whether the deputies followed agency policies.
McCabe's ruling drew sadness, outrage and more questions among some community leaders.
"It's just another layer on the already tense atmosphere that exists in the community," said Sateesh Rogers of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement.
Uhuru members have been marching at BayWalk and in Midtown, protesting the shooting.
Darryl Rouson, president of the NAACP's St. Petersburg chapter, said he finds it hard to believe deputies were completely justified. Yet, he urged people not to react until the internal review is done.
"The pain ... is still in the fact that a young black male's life has been snuffed out and there remains clouds over what happened," Rouson said.
The events leading up to the shooting began about 1 a.m. on May 2 when Deputy John Syers learned of possible drug activity at the LaQuinta Inn, 4999 34th St. N.
Syers, who was in an unmarked car, pulled into the parking lot and saw what appeared to be two men involved a drug deal.
Deputies later pulled one of the men over. He told them he had paid off a drug debt, but hadn't bought drugs. He was let go.
Hoping to find the second man, Syers returned to the parking lot and saw McCullough and a woman standing near a white pickup. When Syers pulled up, the woman walked away. McCullough drove off.
Syers thought McCullough made the earlier deal. Although his suspicions weren't enough to stop the truck, he saw its windows were illegally tinted.
Syers radioed to Antolini, who was in a cruiser nearby, that the truck could be stopped for the tinted windows. Antolini got behind the truck at a red light. McCullough accelerated when the light turned green.
Antolini and DeLeon, who was driving behind him, both turned on their lights and sirens.
McCullough accelerated to about 60 mph, turned into a parking lot and spun the truck around so it was facing the two cruisers.
Antolini got out of his car, drew his gun and ordered McCullough, whom he could not see through the tinted windows, to show his hands.
McCullough then swung the truck into the driver's door of DeLeon's patrol car. DeLeon began screaming that he was stuck in his car. He fired one shot through his windshield, missing McCullough.
Antolini fired three rounds, but none hit McCullough. The teen backed the truck away from DeLeon's car and drove toward Antolini.
Antolini fired one round, which ricocheted into McCullough's upper right arm.
To avoid being hit, Antolini rolled onto the hood of his squad car. The truck hit the right front end of the cruiser, then scraped along the car. McCullough then accelerated toward the street.
While this was happening, cab driver Thomas Bowen was steering his van taxi along 34th Street N. He saw the confrontation and blocked the lot exit with the van, then sought cover behind the front wheel well.
As McCullough pulled away, Antolini got to his feet and DeLeon forced his way out of his cruiser. Seeing that McCullough was headed toward the cab, both deputies ran after him, firing five rounds each. Seven rounds hit McCullough in the shoulder.
The shots included one fatal bullet which apparently ricocheted off part of the seat belt and hit McCullough in the back of the head, according to investigative reports.
The truck slowed and stopped inches short of 34th Street N. McCullough was dead inside.
Officials said Bowen's account of what happened, along with two other witnesses who saw parts of the incident from down the street, match much of the deputies' accounts, as do skid marks made by the cars.
However, video cameras in both deputies' cars were not working. DeLeon's camera was broken, while Antolini's had been having problems. Antolini had turned on the camera, but it only recorded a few seconds, said sheriff's Lt. Steve Shipman.
Some community leaders question why deputies pulled McCullough over in the first place.
The Rev. Louis Murphy of Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg said he questioned whether sheriff's deputies engaged in racial profiling by targeting McCullough.
"How did they pick up this truck?" Murphy asked. "In the minds of most of the young black males, they feel like they're stopped for driving a nice looking car. If they're driving a car that fits the stereotype of a drug dealer, they can be stopped and if they do not handle the situation just right, there's a good chance they can be killed."
Although investigators don't think McCullough was the person Syers first saw making a possible drug deal, 38 pieces of crack cocaine were found in McCullough's pocket. He also had cocaine and cannabis in his urine, reports say.
Shipman said the tinted windows were the legal reason deputies pulled McCullough over, though the circumstances had deputies suspecting him of more.
"I don't think he was targeted merely because he was a black male. I think you have to look at all the circumstances leading up to the traffic stop," Shipman said. "If would be difficult to explain why you wouldn't stop him."
Some black leaders also want to know whether the sheriff's deputies could have done something else to apprehend McCullough.
"The question the community really has is, why did that number of shots need to be fired at a vehicle?" asked Pinellas Commissioner Ken Welch.
Shipman said the deputies fired as many shots as needed to stop the truck from hurting them or anyone else.
"The vehicle continued to move," he said. "The threat was still alive."