Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd: 'Attacking a deputy with a deadly weapon is not acceptable ever'

WINTER HAVEN – Polk County Grady Judd spoke at length Friday afternoon about Patrol Sgt. Sean Speakman’s shooting of 24-year-old Jessiram Hweih Rivera, who Speakman said – and witnesses confirmed to investigators – was attempting to attack him with a shovel.

Judd described an enraged woman with a violent past, a history of mental illness and drug abuse, and an “explosive temper,” raising a shovel above her head and beginning to charge the deputy.

“He could see her body language, and she's attacking him with a deadly weapon,” Judd said. “He was by himself and he was backing up when he shot her and she was advancing on him.”

Judd detailed a series of events in the past month that led up to the Nov. 11 fatal shooting, beginning with Rivera’s mother, Jessica Hweih, calling the Department of Children and Families on Oct. 16 to have Rivera’s newborn daughter removed from her custody because of drug use.

“The referral suggested that the mother was unstable and the safety of the minor child was compromised,” a report provided by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office states. “Jessiram appeared to be stable and did not appear to be under the influence at the time of this investigation. She was drug-screened by the Investigator, which netted a positive result for MDMA (ecstasy), cannabis and amphetamines. Due to these results, a safety plan was put in place for the minor child, which places the minor child with the grandmother, Jessica.”

Rivera’s mother tried twice to place Rivera in a rehabilitation facility or the county jail for drug use under the state’s Marchman Act. The first attempt was on Nov. 4, when Rivera was taken to a Tri-County Human Services facility for drug rehabilitation, but Rivera immediately checked herself out, which is allowable under the law.

'She's in a crisis': Mother of 24-year-old woman fatally shot by Polk deputy says the system failed her

The original story: Winter Haven woman killed by Polk County Sheriff's deputy after reportedly threatening him with a shovel

Mental Health Series: Years ago, people would have been institutionalized. Now, many are homeless

“Unlike Baker Acts (for the mentally ill), once we take them there and put them in the door, if they wave at them and say, ‘See you later – I'm leaving,’ they don't hold them. So they can walk out at any moment in time, and that's exactly what Jessiram did,” Judd told reporters.

On Nov. 10, Rivera’s mother obtained another Marchman Act order, but Judd said this one requested that she be held in the county jail so she could not leave. Deputies tried to locate her, but Judd said she was hiding in Wahneta from them.

History of mental illness and violence

Arrest records provided by the Sheriff’s Office show that Rivera’s entanglement with law enforcement began in 2013, when she was 16, in Osceola County. She was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Among her other charges, Judd said, in 2016 she was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. During a heated argument between mother and daughter, Rivera's mother slapped her and Judd said Rivera then cut her mother with a knife.

On Dec. 4, 2017, she was arrested for and eventually found guilty of felony battery on a law enforcement officer in Osceola County.

She was charged in May 2020 with possession of methamphetamine. A jail booking sheet shows she was held at Tri-County Human Health, a provider of mental health and drug rehabilitation in Polk County.

In Nov. 2020, she was charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. An arrest affidavit shows she got into a fight with her boyfriend, Sergio Benitez, because he wouldn’t marry her, and she pulled a knife on him.

“He stated she said she would cut him, cut his throat, and his family if they called law enforcement,” the affidavit states. “He stated he became afraid she would harm his parents and called law enforcement.

The State Attorney’s Office dropped the charges because her boyfriend would not cooperate with the prosecution.

Rivera’s mother provided The Ledger with a plan of care sheet for Rivera, filled out by psychiatrist Angela Blasini, that shows a “history of bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and drug abuse.”

Rivera had given birth to a baby girl in the past two months.

Two lives intersect

Multiple 911 calls on Nov. 11 brought together a woman in need of help with a deputy trained to do that.

A 911 call provided to The Ledger shows that people called into the emergency center to report a woman in a blue top and flowered pants with blonde hair walking north on Rifle Range Road in Wahneta through moving traffic at 3:17 p.m.

Judd said a witness told investigators that Rivera said the police were after her and she was not going back to jail.

But a responding deputy couldn’t find Rivera and cleared the scene a few minutes after arriving.

At 3:41 p.m. another call came in and Speakman, 46, who was monitoring the department’s live 911, arrived within a minute. While Rivera was wanted on the Marchman Act, Speakman didn’t know her name, who she was, or that she was wanted.

In addition to being a member of the department’s SWAT unit, Speakman has Crisis Intervention Training, a 40-hour formal course that instructs law enforcement officers in how to handle people having a mental health crisis. In 2006, Speakman was photographed by The Ledger talking with participants in Peace River Center’s Jeanene Brown Drop-In Center, which offers psychological aid to people in need. According to Peace River’s website, the center helps people who want:

• To comprehend the purpose in their lives.

• To study the way of resisting emotionally difficult situations.

• To get rid of depression.

• To love not only themselves, but also those around them.

• To convert thinking.

• And to recover after mental disorders.

Deadly encounter

Judd said when Speakman approached Rivera, he tried to engage her in a conversation – a way to de-escalate a tense situation and develop a quick relationship, per his CIT training. But Rivera did not want to talk. Instead, she raised the shovel over her head and slammed it onto a stack of wood alongside Noles Lane, a rural, dirt road off Rifle Range Road.

A jail booking sheet from last year shows that Rivera was 5-foot-4 and weighed 150 pounds. Judd estimated the shovel to be just under 5 feet long. Speakman is at least six feet tall and trim.

“Sergeant Speakman begins to approach her and try to calm her down 'cause he can see that she's agitated and angry and she turns and starts advancing on him,” Judd said, adding that Speakman continued to try to talk with Rivera. “She ignores it. She brings the shovel up over her head as she's advancing on him and he's now telling her to ‘Drop the shovel! Drop the shovel!’ and she's got it in a clubbing fashion over her head. She responds to him, ‘I'm not afraid of you,’ as she continues to advance on him.”

Judd said investigators talked to two independent witnesses who confirmed that she was holding the shovel over her head and that Speakman ordered her multiple times to put the shovel down as he was backing away from her.

Judd said Rivera got within striking distance of Speakman, who feared that she would stab him or slice him with the shovel’s blade or bash his head in with it. And then Speakman had to make a split-second decision.

“After many opportunities to put the shovel down, she didn't – then he shot her,” Judd said. “As soon as she went down, he provided first aid for her and we called, obviously, EMS and Fire Rescue and they came.”

A mother's frustration

Rivera’s mother has complained to The Ledger that Speakman could have used a taser on her daughter and didn’t need to shoot her once, let alone four times.

Judd said he understands a mother’s frustration over the death of her daughter, but defended Speakman.

“Let me make one thing abundantly clear – attacking a deputy with a deadly weapon is not acceptable ever and my deputies have not only a right, but an obligation, to protect the community and themselves from deadly attacks or potentially deadly attacks and that's what happened on this particular occasion,” Judd said.

He noted a case about 10 years ago, when a deputy tried to stop a man about to attack him and pulled out his taser. The taser failed, the man tackled the deputy, and began stabbing him repeatedly in the chest. The deputy's bulletproof vest was the only thing that stopped the blade and the deputy shot and killed the man.

Judd added that if Speakman hadn’t stopped her, Rivera could have disabled him and then attacked an innocent bystander with the shovel.

“I'm sorry for her family, but she was a train wreck and her family knew it and her momma tried to get her help and she has cut her momma and there's been all kinds of issues there,” Judd said.

He noted that, as the law currently stands, mentally ill patients can refuse treatment and medication, and cannot be held against their will if they are not charged with a crime.

“I feel like the person that failed her was her...Her mother tried to help her through the system, but that was her choice to take drugs," Judd said. "It was her choice to hide from the deputies that knew who she was and was trying to take her back and into custody and deliver her to the to the jail on a Marchman order...that she walked away from a week before. How's that our problem? How is that a system problem that she doesn't want help?”

Rivera's mother told The Ledger on Friday afternoon that she was on her way to the airport to take her daughter to her funeral out of state.

Ledger reporter Kimberly C. Moore can be reached at kmoore@theledger.com or 863-802-7514. Follow her on Twitter at @KMooreTheLedger.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Judd defends Polk deputy's actions in fatal shooting of woman with shovel