VIDEO: Armed, Barricaded Subject Shoots Self After Shooting Man In Deltona Apartment

Date Added: November 30, 2018 7:23 am

Update 11/30/18:

The IDs of the deceased are:

60-year-old Noel Flores (DOB 6/13/1958) – barricaded subject

44-year-old Arthur Johnson (DOB 12/1/1973)
 

ARMED, BARRICADED SUBJECT SHOOTS SELF AFTER SHOOTING MAN IN DELTONA APARTMENT

Deputies were in area to arrest suspect in recent courthouse threats

A 6-hour negotiation with an armed and barricaded man in a Deltona apartment building Thursday night ended in his apparent suicide by self-inflicted gunshot Friday morning. Another man was found dead inside the apartment, confirming the barricaded subject’s earlier statements that he’d shot and killed someone.

The incident at Belltower Apartments (530 Belltower Ave., Deltona) began just after 7 p.m. Thursday, when deputies were in the area looking to locate and arrest a suspect in connection to recent threats phoned in to the Volusia County Courthouse in DeLand. (See below for the Nov. 9 news release in that case.)

While those deputies were on scene, they heard gunshots from the suspect’s apartment. Deputies began evacuating the surrounding apartments as backup units responded to the complex. Moments later, the suspect called 911 and spoke for several minutes with a Sheriff’s Office telecommunicator, telling her he had just shot a man and was planning on taking his own life rather than going to jail. The telecommunicator prayed with the suspect and attempted to calm him during an approximately 6 ½-minute initial phone call followed by a 13-minute callback:

“…If you don’t listen to anything else that I say, can you just please put that gun down?” she asked him multiple times. The suspect repeated that he couldn’t bear going back to jail. “I love you so much because you’re helping me out, but I’m just telling you the truth: I cannot do it; I cannot do it. I can’t,” he told her. He said he had no intention of hurting any law enforcement officers.

Negotiators on scene were able to establish phone contact with the suspect and communicate with him directly for several hours, but he was not willing to come outside. The suspect also spoke on the phone with Sheriff Mike Chitwood but still refused to leave the apartment.

The suspect told deputies the man he shot was an adult male friend/relative, and that he shot the man after the man pointed the gun at him and also threatened him with a knife while deputies were outside the apartment building.

Shortly after 1 a.m., members of the VCSO SWAT team along with a bomb robot entered the apartment and found one man dead inside a front bedroom. The suspect was located in the master bedroom closet with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, which he’s believed to have sustained as SWAT was clearing the apartment. A deputy performed life-saving measures on the suspect at the scene until a Deltona Fire Rescue paramedic relieved him, and then he was transported to Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford in critical condition. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital. There were no injuries to any deputies or other first responders.

Release/official confirmation of the identities of both of the deceased is pending positive identification and/or notification of next of kin.

###

Friday, Nov. 9, 2018
For immediate release
Contact: Laura Williams, Office of Public Affairs & Media Relations

VCSO ASKS PUBLIC TO HELP IDENTIFY SUSPECT IN COURTHOUSE BOMB THREATS

Volusia County sheriff’s detectives are trying to identify a suspect after call-takers at the DeLand Courthouse received two threatening phone calls Tuesday (Nov. 6) stating people “were going to die” Wednesday morning at the courthouse.

One call came in about 3:45 p.m. Tuesday and the second was received 20 minutes later. Both callers were male and both stated the incident would occur between 10:30 and 10:45 a.m. Wednesday at the courthouse, 101 N. Alabama Ave., DeLand.

Early Wednesday before the courthouse opened to the public, a sheriff’s deputy and his explosives detection K-9 investigated the entire four-floor courthouse. No explosives were found.

Sheriff’s detectives used investigative means to track a phone number used in the calls. That led them to a subject in a Metro PC store who came into the store dressed as a construction worker. The male subject asked to borrow a phone and is shown in surveillance video making a call linked to the phone number used in the calls.

Anyone with information about the person shown in screen shots from the surveillance video is asked to call sheriff’s Detective Gerald Johnson at (386) 943-7866. If you prefer to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers of Northeast Florida at 1-888-277-8477 (TIPS) or via online at www.northeastflorida.crimestoppersweb.com

###