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Shooting of three ends in surrender

A former USF campus police sergeant barricades himself inside his home for several hours.

By JACOB H. FRIES and SHANNON TAN
Published November 19, 2005

CLEARWATER - Jeffrey Devries had long complained the neighbors were out to get him.

He told police he had been the victim of various crimes, from battery to burglary. Officers had gone to his Beverly Circle home eight times this year.

So when he saw four people on his porch carrying tiki torches about 2 a.m. Friday, he feared they were trying to break in, Pinellas sheriff's detectives said.

He fired six shots through the front door of his home at 1818 Beverly Circle, wounding three of the people, said sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha.

As squad cars and ambulances raced to the scene, Devries, a retired University of South Florida campus police sergeant, barricaded himself inside, triggering a standoff with authorities that would last more than seven hours.

Those wounded - Samantha Frances Sipka, 16; Jason Thomas Biaso, 19; and Mark Eric Hoover, 46 - sustained injuries that weren't considered life-threatening. Sipka was in stable condition and Hoover in fair condition at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, authorities said. Biaso, who was shot in the shoulder, was treated and released.

The three of them initially told investigators they had been walking in the street, carrying the torches, when all of a sudden, shots rang out and they were hit, Pasha said.

Physical evidence uncovered at the scene, however, indicated they had been on Devries' doorstep - not the street - when Devries fired, Pasha said. Detectives also learned there had been a fourth person present, Miles Bailey Jr., 23, further supporting Devries' account of the shooting.

Confronted with the discrepancies, one of the four admitted they had been at the door at the time of the shooting, reading signs Devries had posted on the door, said Pasha. She declined to identify the person.

Sipka and Hoover declined to comment through a hospital spokesman. Biaso also declined to answer questions. Efforts to reach Bailey were unsuccessful.

No charges had been filed late Friday.

"There are various levels of conflicts in their statements," Pasha said, "so there's still more work for the investigators to do."

The first 911 call came at 1:51 a.m.

"I heard the gunshots - boom, boom, boom!" said neighbor Ken List, 50. "Then screaming, like the people were trying to run."

Jennifer Lechner, 46, another neighbor, went outside and ducked behind a bush to take a look. She heard screams from Sipka, who was shot in the jaw and thigh.

She saw Hoover, who was shot in the arm, yelling from the street at responding officers, "We're here. We're here. The gunman's next door."

Both Clearwater police and Pinellas County sheriff's deputies responded because the street lies on the city-county line. The sheriff's SWAT team eventually replaced Clearwater's team and resumed attempts to communicate with Devries, Bordner said.

List, through his window, saw camouflaged deputies approach Devries' house, then retreat, again and again for hours in the darkness.

"They were very methodical," he said. "For a while, I thought they were going to storm the back of the house."

Finally, after hours talking with negotiators over the phone, Devries surrendered at 9:30 a.m. As he walked out his door, he ignored some of the deputies' commands. He was struck with a Taser and shot with a rubber bullet, Bordner said.

Devries, who wore blue sweat pants and a T-shirt, was then handcuffed and taken to a hospital for evaluation.

"He looked very docile," List recalled. "He just looked worn down."

In recent weeks, Devries had called 911 and e-mailed police with increasing frequency, claiming that he had been the victim of various crimes, Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor said. Officers responded to his house, but found nothing to substantiate his claims.

In April, he told police someone was using "transponders" to harass him at home, police reports show. Last month, he said neighbors had developed a way to send voices through his electrical wiring. Among the voices he heard inside his house, he told officers, was that of fiction writer Stephen King.

Jeffrey Devries worked as a police officer at USF's St. Petersburg campus from 1988 to 1998 when he retired as a sergeant, a university spokeswoman said. His father said his son left the job when he developed thyroid cancer.

"That really devastated him," said Stanley Devries, 73.

The elder Devries, who visited his son after he was taken into custody, said his son had felt the need to defend himself Friday morning. The neighbors had been banging on the door and windows and Devries thought they were trying to get inside, his father said.

"They were obviously making a lot of noise and were very threatening," he said.

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

[Last modified November 19, 2005, 01:07:13]