Undercover deputy kills teen

Authorities say the victim was using a car as a weapon when the deputy fired.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO and S.I. ROSENBAUM, Times Staff Writers
Published October 3, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT Dwight "D.J." Kitchen's mom said he always put other people first. [Family photo]

PLANT CITY - A routine arrest turned deadly Monday night when an undercover deputy fatally shot a 19-year-old man.

Dwight Leodis "D.J." Kitchen wasn't the person deputies sought when they first arrived at 750 Charlie Taylor Road at 10:40 p.m. to serve an arrest warrant.

They wanted Cameron Porter, 19, who lived there and had been accused of dealing in stolen property.

Deputies cuffed Porter without incident.

Now Kitchen's family struggles to understand how he ended up dead.

"Why did they kill him?" grandmother Lossie Kitchen, 58, asked Tuesday evening as family gathered outside Dwight's home. "He didn't have no gun."

Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter didn't deny that but said Kitchen had used a 3,000-pound vehicle as a weapon.

According to deputies, Porter arrived at the Charlie Taylor Road house shortly after deputies did. He got out of a Mitsubishi owned by his friend's parents and went inside with deputies following. Two people remained in the car.

After deputies arrested Porter inside, they seized cocaine and what they believed to be a stolen shotgun. As they left the house, they saw 20-year-old Derrick Mathew Spangler run from the Mitsubishi.

Then, two undercover deputies approached the car. One saw Dwight Kitchen seated in the passenger seat, Carter said. When the deputy got closer, he called out to Kitchen and identified himself, she said.

The Sheriff's Office is withholding the deputy's name, citing the confidentiality required in undercover work.

Here's what Carter said happened next:

Kitchen dove to the floorboard, put the car in reverse and hit the gas pedal with his hand. The car brushed the leg of the unidentified deputy, then rolled over his foot.

Kitchen rammed the Mitsubishi into the undercover vehicle parked behind him. As the undercover deputy tried to jump over a fence and to shield himself behind a tree, Kitchen climbed into the driver's seat and accelerated toward other undercover deputies in the vehicle's path.

The deputy behind the tree fired his weapon three times, Carter said, hitting Kitchen through the driver's side window.

It was not immediately clear how many bullets hit Kitchen, or where.

Kitchen's car continued moving forward, clipping a pole, hitting bushes and crashing into a tree about 150 yards away.

He was dead at the scene.

Twanta Knighten, 37, said she tried to keep her son from trouble. Dwight Kitchen was a good boy growing up, she said, always using "yes, ma'am" and "no ma'am." When Knighten hit hard times, her son would offer his allowance to help.

"He always put other people first," Knighten said. "He'd give you his last."

Kitchen started having trouble in high school, she said. State arrest records show he was charged as a juvenile in 2005 and 2006 on cocaine possession and robbery charges.

In September 2006, after he turned 18, Kitchen was arrested again, charged with possessing cocaine with the intent to sell. In October, he faced more drug charges and was sentenced to three months in jail for resisting an officer, state records report.

Carter said the deputy who shot Kitchen, who has been with the Sheriff's Office since 1988, has been placed on administrative leave with pay, pending an internal investigation - standard procedure when a deputy fires his weapon.

Times researcher John Martin and staff writer Casey Cora contributed to this report.

[Last modified October 3, 2007, 00:08:32]