Review: Lake Wales officers justified in fatal shooting of suspect who killed police dog

An official review has found that Lake Wales Police Department officers were justified in the fatal shooting last August of an armed suspect who had killed a police dog.

Mark Levine, an Assistant State Attorney for the 10^th Judicial Circuit, released a three-page letter this week describing the investigation he oversaw. The review examined the actions of two Lake Wales officers, Jared Joyner and Esaul Hernandez, who fired multiple shots at Earnest Borders, a suspect found hiding in thick bushes by a police dog.

Levine emphasized that the officers knew Borders, 57, was armed and had reportedly fired several shots in a residential area earlier that morning. He wrote that Borders ignored repeated demands from the officers to show his hands and that the officers saw and heard the suspect shoot his gun just before they fired at him.

“K9 Max and the Lake Wales Police Officers put their lives on the line and bravely did their jobs,” Levine wrote. “Because of the subject’s actions, Officer Jared Joyner and Officer Esaul Hernandez believed that the subject was going to kill them and their fellow officers and were concerned and placed in fear for their safety and lives and for the safety and lives of their fellow officers when they fired their weapons at the subject.”

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The Lake Wales Police Department also released a video this week that included footage recorded by an officer’s body-worn camera. Though Borders is largely obscured by heavy vegetation, stopped images show him holding a gun and firing a single shot at the police dog, seconds before the officers opened fire.

The review determined that Joyner fired approximately 18 times and Hernandez approximately 12 times.

Lake Wales officers responded at 5:06 a.m. on Aug. 3, 2022, following two emergency calls from residents of Seminole Avenue. The video released by the department includes excerpts from both calls.

In the first call, a woman Levine identified as Borders’ romantic partner tells a dispatcher that he dragged her out of a car, choked her and hit her head against pavement. The woman, who is not identified in keeping with state law, said Borders then fired a gun several times outside of her apartment.

The second caller, another woman, also reported that a man had been firing a gun near her apartment.

Levine’s letter and the annotated video from the Lake Wales Police Department described this scenario: Officers arrived at the apartments on Seminole Avenue and found several casings from a 9mm gun but did not see the suspect. A resident told officers that a bullet had passed through a window of his apartment.

A short time later, as officers continued to search for the suspect, Borders’ girlfriend told officers she had spotted him on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, just to the west. A dispatcher relayed the information to officers in the area, and several units headed to the scene.

Hernandez saw the suspect and began to pursue him on foot, as Borders turned onto railroad tracks that cross the road.

Officer Christina Bullard arrived in her patrol car, and Hernandez jumped in. Bullard drove on the railroad tracks as the two looked for Borders.

Joyner had finished an overnight shift at 5 a.m. but heard the radio call and came to the scene with K9 Max as another officer, Ashley Cockrell, also arrived. The four officers proceeded along the railroad tracks on foot, with Joyner holding the dog on a 15-foot leash.

The officers called out multiple times for the suspect to come forward, but Borders did not respond. The video shows K9 Max going into a leafy area to the right of the tracks from the officers.

Officers repeatedly call, “Come on out, now!” and “Show me your hands!” An officer’s arm can be seen pointing a gun toward the foliage, along with Joyner’s outstretched hand, holding a black leash.

Within seconds, a man yells from the bushes in what the report describes as Borders reacting to a bite from the police dog. The video, slowed in speed and stopped at certain points, has a superimposed red circle showing a gray object identified as the gun Borders was holding.

The video shows a gray blur that is identified as a muzzle blast from the gun. A necropsy later determined that Borders fired a single shot into dog’s neck. A video caption says that Borders then turned toward the officers.

In his letter, Levine wrote that Hernandez saw the suspect raise his arm while holding a black pistol.

“Officer Hernandez saw the subject’s hand come up, and when the subject shot Officer Hernandez stood and delivered, and immediately engaged and shot back,” Levine wrote.

The video captures a sequence of gun shots fired in quick session over about six seconds.

“During the violence, Officer Hernandez believed the gun was pointed at him and believed that he was going to be shot and killed by the subject and that he and his fellow officers were about to get shot by the subject and were about to die,” Levine wrote.

In the LWPD video, a caption states that cameras are worn at or just below chest level and that the angle “prohibits viewers from seeing everything the officer saw and experienced.”

Joyner found K9 Max’s lifeless body beside Borders in the brush. An officer began performing CPR on Borders, and the video shows hands pushing against the man’s chest.

Borders was taken to AdventHealth Lake Wales and pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m.

Officers found a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol containing six live rounds beside Borders’ body. The gun was later determined to have been reported stolen from Babson Park in 2021, according to a PCSO report.

The Medical Examiner’s Office for the 10^th Judicial Circuit conducted an autopsy and determined that Borders had been struck by at least 15 rounds. Toxicology results detected the presence of cocaine, cough medicine, anti-anxiety medication, a stimulant known as Pentylone and byproducts of cocaine and alcohol consumption.

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The Lake Wales officers involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave with pay for a short period, according to department policy, Deputy Chief David Black said by email. Joyner has since left the agency, he said.

At the time of the incident, Joyner was an 11-year veteran with the department. He was paired with K9 Max in 2015.

Any shooting by officers automatically results in reviews by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office and an internal investigation. Black said the agency is continuing its own probe.

LWPD Chief Chris Velasquez had no comment on the release of the letter and video, Black said.

The Lake Wales Police Department and the Sheriff’s Office held a procession the day of the incident for Max, a 7-year-old Belgian shepherd. Joyner drove lead with his fallen partner in his vehicle.

Some Lake Wales residents have criticized the police department for not releasing the body-camera video soon after the episode. Terrye Howell, a city commissioner until last month, repeatedly raised the issue at meetings.

In an email, Black said the video was part of an active investigation and was not released earlier because of an exemption to Florida’s public-records requirements.

“This was explained multiple times to all who asked,” Black wrote.

Reached by phone Friday morning, Howell said she was not aware that LWPD had released the video. She said she wishes the agency had at least allowed Borders’ relatives to see the video earlier.

“The concern is they were never told anything for a long time,” Howell said. “It was no closure to the family. It was almost as if it was being dismissed from their concern, almost.”

She added: “I told them that everyone else in the country can see a (police) video within 48 hours, and I just couldn't understand why it was taking so long for Lake Wales.”

In the absence of the video or more information from the agency, dark rumors swirled in the city, Howell said.

“And people in the community kept talking about it and kept talking about it, and the picture was being painted in a bad way every time,” she said. “It was just awful, as far as I'm concerned, because people kept speculating what happened. And the longer it was, the more it was built on.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Review clears Lake Wales officers in fatal shooting after killing of K9