Deputies shoot, kill gunmen

The man came out of a mobile home with a gun, deputies say.

By ERIN SULLIVAN
Published June 3, 2007

HUDSON - Mark Tatum was running for his life Friday night.

A man with a gun had smashed a window to get into Tatum's mobile home off Bolton Avenue a little after 9 p.m.

Tatum found a way to escape the beige mobile home and dashed into the thick woods surrounding it. He used his cell phone to call 911. Then he called his mother, authorities said.

Six deputies raced over the rough dirt road to the home and confronted the gunman, whose identity had not been released Saturday evening.

When the man came out of the mobile home holding a handgun, deputies told him to drop it.

He refused. Then he started shooting.

Three deputies returned fire.

The man fell. Deputies performed CPR, but he died on Tatum's front porch.

No deputies were injured.

Tatum wasn't hurt either. After finding his way out of the woods, a friend picked him up and took him back to his home.

Authorities said Tatum, 49, knew the attacker, but the relationship was not described Saturday.

The three deputies involved in the shooting were put on paid administrative leave, said sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll. The state attorney's office was investigating.

The deputies involved in the shooting are:

- William Ferguson, a 22-year-old who has been a deputy for 3 1/2 years.

In April, Ferguson was given a Lifesaving Award by the Sheriff's Office for helping a woman who had been imprisoned and beaten by her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend.

In January, Ferguson got the same award, that time for pulling a man to shore whose car had plunged into a lake.

- William Orndorff, a 24-year-old deputy who has been with the Sheriff's Office for 3 1/2 years.

- Jeffrey Desenso, a 36-year-old deputy who has been with the Sheriff's Office for seven months.

Neighbors said Saturday that they didn't know Tatum or the dead man; they just heard the shots and sirens and watched from their windows.

Around the neighborhood, most people keep to themselves. It's best that way, they said.

Saturday morning, the man washing blood off Tatum's front porch refused to give his name and didn't want to talk about what happened the night before.

"It's nice out here," a reporter ventured.

"It used to be," he said and went back hosing off the dead man's blood.

Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@sptimes.com or 813 909-4609.

[Last modified June 2, 2007, 22:45:32]