Pointing gun gets Pasco deputy in trouble

He is charged with assault after allegedly intimidating an inmate strapped to a bed.

DADE CITY - A Pasco detention deputy stood over a jail inmate strapped hand and foot to a hospital bed. He drew his gun and pointed it at the man's head.

"We're not gonna have any trouble out of you today, are we?" he said, according to Sheriff's Office spokesman Kevin Doll.

The deputy, Erik Vasquenz, then holstered the .40-caliber Glock and finished his shift Friday at Pasco Regional Medical Center. But Vasquenz's partner on the detail, Deputy Jean Terkowski, was disturbed by the intimidation and reported Vasquenz.

Vasquenz, 29, was arrested Saturday and charged with aggravated assault. He was also placed on paid administrative leave.

"You cannot point a gun at someone that is not doing anything wrong," Pasco sheriff's Lt. Skip Stone said Sunday.

Vasquenz and Terkowski had been assigned to guard Richard Dewayne Mitchell on Friday. Mitchell, 42, was being held on multiple warrants and had led authorities on a two-county car chase days earlier, officials say.

After Terkowski told officials about the incident, Mitchell gave his account of the events and she corroborated it. No one else saw what happened, Doll said. And Mitchell had not told anyone about the incident.

"I understand Mitchell was surprised that we were investigating it," Doll said.

Mitchell has an arrest record spanning more than 20 years and at least 27 arrests in Florida. He is wanted for questioning in a Nov. 21 bank robbery in Dade City and a homicide last week north of that city in which an 18-year-old Mexican man was shot to death inside a mobile home.

Thursday, he was seen driving in Hernando County. Authorities chased him into Pasco and eventually caught up with him in an orange grove.

He was hospitalized after his arrest. The nature of his condition was not revealed. He has since been transferred to the county jail in Land O'Lakes, where he was held Sunday without bail.

"That's not unusual for someone to be arrested and then go to the hospital first before they are medically cleared," Doll said.

Vasquenz, a detention deputy since 2001, does not carry a gun when he works in the county jail. But for security work such as in the hospital, deputies pick up weapons at the jail, carry them during their shifts and return them to the jail.

Vasquenz's gun was seized; "I imagine that was seized for evidence," Doll said.

After his arrest Saturday afternoon, Vasquenz posted $5,000 bail and was released. Reached Sunday by phone, he declined to comment.

The Sheriff's Office will conduct an internal investigation but probably not until the criminal case against Vasquenz is resolved.

Doll said Terkowski will continue with her normal duties, and "is to be commended."

"That is a big thing to do. It's a major choice," he said. "I don't believe for any reason whatsoever she would be ostracized. She turned in someone who broke the law."

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