Former deputy says Sheriff Ivey treated him poorly after shooting. Now he wants the job

The most harrowing part of the gunfight that nearly cost former Brevard County Deputy Brian Potters his life was the part that wasn't caught on video.

He still has the scar where Paris Wilder, the gunman in the deadly August 2021 shooting during a traffic stop near West Melbourne, jammed the barrel of his AR-style rifle into Potters' forehead, in a scuffle just outside the frame of the dash-cam video that made national news.

An investigation showed Wilder charged Potters and another responding deputy, using his rifle like a club after it was damaged in the shootout and unable to fire. Potters said that probably saved his life.

"He hits me on the left side, we fall down, and he puts the rifle to my forehead. I pushed it away, which caused this laceration up here," Potters said, brushing the pockmark above his right eye. "There was (a round) still in the chamber when he hit me in the head."

The incident left Wilder dead and Potters with a self-inflicted bullet in his ankle — the result of an accidental discharge during the fog of battle, Potters said — a fractured skull, memory loss and post-traumatic stress, he said, wounds he still grapples with more than two years later.

The shooting and its aftermath also opened his eyes to the problems facing the county's largest law enforcement agency, he said — and changed his mind about his former boss, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey.

Now medically retired as a result of his injuries, Potters is challenging Ivey in the 2024 race for Brevard sheriff.

2024 election coverage: Ex-Brevard deputy who was shot in line of duty to challenge Sheriff Ivey in GOP primary

Potters — a Republican, like Ivey — is staking what some experts see as a longshot bid on dissatisfaction with the polarizing but popular sheriff among their own party, and on rumors of low morale in the sheriff's office ranks, which he attributes to what he described as Ivey's out-of-touch leadership style.

It's only Ivey's second challenge and his first in a primary election since he was first elected in 2012. Ivey defeated Democrat Alton Edmond in 2020 with 66% of the vote.

Potters said his decision was motivated in part by what he felt was poor treatment by the sheriff after the shooting.

While he spoke to Ivey several times by phone from the hospital, the sheriff never came to visit him, he said. Nor did he receive any help from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office Charity for wounded first responders, Potters said, even after he was named a 2021 Deputy of the Year.

He also said he didn't see any money from t-shirts that were marketed and sold by the charity with the sheriff's blessing, capitalizing on the shooting and Ivey's viral slogan, "Evil can't be dead enough" — a twist Potters said later left him feeling used and demeaned.

"Is that how a charity should be acting? Parading around the shooting death of a citizen by its deputies during an attack? During the attempted murder of me?" he said. "It's pretty messed up."

In an email to FLORIDA TODAY, Ivey called Potters' criticisms "ridiculous and out of touch." Ivey said he was out of town during and after the shooting, and was in constant contact with Potters as he closely monitored the situation by telephone and video call, he said.

He has no direct involvement with the charity, Ivey said, which was entirely separate from the sheriff's office. Lindsey Deaton, executive director of the charity, said Potters failed to provide additional information the board needed to approve the funds, a claim Potters disputes.

"I find it ironic that Potters routinely and constantly sang my praises as the leader of this agency right up until the time he decided he was going to run for the office of Sheriff," Ivey said.

Potters was upfront about his previous support for Ivey, but said deputies under the sheriff are underequipped and undermotivated — a lesson he said he learned the hard way. He'd fix that, he said.

"For the longest time, I was absolutely on Ivey's bus. No doubt," Potters said. "I know that the next deputy attacked with a rifle will not be prepared."

Brian Potters running on bottom-up changes

Potters is running on a platform that includes providing better body armor rated for rifle fire and addressing understaffing and working condition concerns at the county jail.

He plans to expand access to mental health programs and work opportunities for jail inmates. Potters said he will also implement a number of major and minor policy changes that he said rank-and-file deputies have long called for.

Those include: the creation of a BCSO family services office; support for child care; streamlining the chain of command by reducing command staff positions by 50%; allowing deputies to take off-duty details in other counties; and allowing deputies to wear hats and facial hair.

"If you listen to the guys at the very bottom and bring those ideas to the top, that will increase morale," Potters said. "Morale is more deadly than a bad guy, is it not? Cops shoot themselves at the house after shifts all the time. We've seen it."

He also said he would be transparent with the sheriff's office budget, something for which Ivey has faced criticism in the past. He pledged to post the agency's annual line-item budget on the sheriff's office website so the public can track how each tax dollar is spent.

Who is Brian Potters?

Potters said he retired from the sheriff's office in September last year after his ankle injury left him unable to run. He had been with the agency just over two years, after jumping over from the Titusville Police Department in early 2020.

His off-and-on career as a beat cop began in 2003 when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps just out of high school outside Richmond, Indiana, going to work as a military police officer, he said.

After an honorable discharge in 2009, Potters briefly went to work as a federal corrections officer in Lexington, Kentucky, before attending the University of Kentucky on the G.I. Bill, where he met his wife, Christina.

He dropped out before finishing his associate's degree and tried his hand at a couple of small businesses, which included his own limousine business with a limo he bought off eBay, he said, before joining the Fayette County Constable's office in late 2014.

Potters ran for sheriff once before, unsuccessfully challenging a longtime Democratic incumbent for Fayette County Sheriff in 2014. Potters said the decision was very close to his choice to run for sheriff in Brevard, with the odds similarly stacked against him.

More on 'Evil can never be dead enough': Sheriff's charity sells T-shirts linked to fatal deputy-involved shooting

"I could have easily gone away and left it alone, and never brought up these issues I'm constantly hearing from my friends," he said. "It seemed like nobody had ever challenged the status quo."

Potters went to work for Titusville police after moving his family to Florida in 2016, he said.

FLORIDA TODAY spoke with two people who previously worked with Potters. Both described him as a good cop who is willing to listen and talk to anybody.

"He's the kind of the guy that if something's not right, he's going to figure out why it's not right," said Danny Selph, now an Orlando police officer who worked alongside Potters for about two years at the Titusville Police Department. "If there's an issue with a policy or something we had, he'd be the guy to go to and ask the question."

Kevin Hand, who served with Potters as a military police officer in Quantico, Virginia, said as a cop Potters was "professional" and "thorough."

"When I was in the Marine Corps, Brian always cared about the guys underneath him," he said. "A lot of times with these higher-up positions (like sheriff) it's usually about good press or money, but that's not him."

Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey disputes criticisms

Potters was pointed in his criticism of Ivey, who he said spent more time making "gameshow videos" than listening to his deputies.

"They will not tell you anything, but any concern that's ever brought up usually is not addressed. Point is, he does not know what's going on day to day. He has no clue," Potters said.

Ivey called into question the attacks in an email to FLORIDA TODAY, pointing out a string of effusive Facebook posts from Potters that thanked Ivey for his support in the months after the shooting.

"How is it, that suddenly, overnight I go from being a leader that he thanks in posts all over his personal Facebook page, the leader of the finest law enforcement agency in the nation according to his own letter of separation ... yet all of a sudden once he announces his candidacy for Sheriff, his views about me suddenly change," Ivey wrote.

A sheriff's office contract with five local police unions, recently ratified by a margin of 622 to 4, disproved the idea that deputies were unhappy with his leadership, he said.

"I challenge you to find a Sheriff in this country that is more involved in the day to day operations of their agency and more engaged with their troops than I am," Ivey said.

Ivey also disputed the suggestion that he didn't care about Potters' injuries, including what he said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to Potters' ankle.

He gave a detailed timeline of his response to the shooting from his cabin in Tennessee, including frequent calls with Potters and posting a 24-hour guard detail to his hospital room. Ivey also said he helped arrange a special visit for Potters from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

"I am sorry that I wasn't injured enough for the Sheriff to make arrangements to fly back to be with your 'team' as you call them," Potter said, in a follow-up email responding to Ivey's comments.

"Regardless of how the gunshot occurred, I never gave up in my fight to live during the attempted murder by a convicted felon in possession of a stolen firearm, who was out on two bonds," Potters said. "Maybe that is a problem we can address."

Ivey denied ever promising Potters support from the BCSO charity, which he said makes funding decisions independently of the sheriff's office.

Lindsey Deaton, executive director of the charity and Ivey's campaign manager, called Potters' claim that he never got assistance from them "misleading."

She sent FLORIDA TODAY emails showing the charity had been working with Potters, but that his application stalled after she said he failed to provide additional documentation requested by the board.

Overreach by Brevard sheriff? Wayne Ivey tries to influence public policy beyond policing

Potters withdrew his request after he said he didn't hear back from the charity on the status of his application for over two months, the emails show. A further request for help in September 2022 as he was preparing to retire went unanswered.

"The lack of assistance for families during times like this was difficult to understand," Potters said in the follow-up email. "There is no compassion or empathy for the families of cops hurt in the Line-of-Duty by the Sheriff or the charity he claims he does not run."

"I challenge the Sheriff and Ms. Deaton to release all the applications for assistance, contributions, and expenditures since 2020 and see where the money is really going," he said.

Deaton defended the organization in an email, saying: "Each request, as it is received is meticulously evaluated based on need and the charity's capacity to make a meaningful impact."

"For many years, the community has placed its trust in the charity to be responsible stewards for the funds entrusted to it. This trust is evident through the sustained and robust support for our first responders by the community," Deaton wrote.

Path to election in Brevard County sheriff race difficult, but not impossible

Potters doesn't hide the fact he used to be a booster for the sheriff. That changed, he said, after Ivey appeared alongside DeSantis at a press conference in August, announcing the suspension of State Attorney Monique Worrell.

DeSantis removed the Orlando-area prosecutor citing neglect of duty after the shooting of two Orlando police officers by an offender who was out on bond — just as Wilder had been during the shooting that wounded Potters.

"I knew both of those officers personally," Potters said. "I looked at (Ivey) like, you're saying the exact same thing you told me two years ago. ... This is the complete same scenario that I had, and nothing changed. That's why I don't trust him."

Ivey has made higher bonds and more stringent release conditions a major part of his endorsements for judges in past elections.

Ivey's popularity has weathered a past challenge for office in 2020 and endured recent scandals, including allegations from three candidates for other positions in 2022 that he tried to use promises of jobs and appointments to lure them out of the race.

While the sheriff's staying power, especially among Republicans, makes Potters' bid a longshot, it's not impossible, according to Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.

"I haven't seen much evidence that the average Brevard Republican is dissatisfied with the sheriff, but of course, that's why we have elections," Jewett said.

"He has a compelling personal story that might resonate with some voters, and the fact that he has experience as a sheriff's deputy, so he's quite familiar with the work of the office."

Potters said he knows toppling Ivey would be a tall order, but he's up to the challenge.

"I believe anyone has a shot," he said. "I don't think anyone is so powerful and all-being that change can't occur."

Eric Rogers is a watchdog reporter for FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Rogers at 321-242-3717 or esrogers@floridatoday.com. Follow him on X: @EricRogersFT.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard sheriff candidate: Wayne Ivey didn't help after he was shot