By Jamie Malernee, Sun-Sentinel News (Florida)
A Fort Lauderdale police officer shot at a kidnapping suspect Monday morning after the man sped toward another officer in his car, a police report said.
The suspect was not hurt in the shooting, although he was taken to the hospital after his arrest for treatment of injuries caused by a police dog. Onterrious V. Tillman, 33, of Lauderdale Lakes, remained in jail Monday on charges of aggravated assault on a police officer, aggravated fleeing and eluding and resisting arrest.
It all began when a man at a Plantation 7-Eleven convenience store slipped a note to a shopper, saying he was the victim of a kidnapping. Soon after, the same man, Jason Clay Willis, 26, of Lauderdale Lakes, called Fort Lauderdale police from a phone at a convenience store in the city, saying he had escaped after being abducted. He identified his abductor as Tillman, and said Tillman took his car and planned to commit a robbery, the report said.
Within minutes, three Fort Lauderdale police officers found Tillman near that car, just north of NW 6th Street on Powerline Road. One of them, Officer Steve Scelfo, ordered Tillman to stop. Instead, Tillman ran to the car and began speeding backward toward Scelfo, the report said.
At one point, a weapon was seen and a back-up officer shot at Tillman several times, the report said. He missed. While speeding off from police, Tillman crashed the car into a median. He ran from the car, and a police dog took him down.
Fort Lauderdale Police spokesman Sgt. Alfred Lewers Jr., declined to release the name of the officer who fired his gun while the shooting remains under investigation, which is standard policy for any police shooting, he said.