The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office has released body cam footage from the morning Hilliard woman Donna Dale was killed in a deputy-involved shooting.
Deputies responded to a residence in Hilliard at approximately 2:30 a.m. Jan. 11 to reports of Dale threatening harm to herself and others in the residence. Witnesses told deputies Dale had run into the woods nearby with a knife. Some of the deputies on scene were familiar with Dale, who had previously been Baker Acted and had been involved in a vehicle crash a few days prior.
The video is from the body cam of Christian Copher, the deputy who fired the shot. In the video, deputies surround Dale as she crouches in the bushes. Officers can be heard instructing her to come out from the bushes, a command she refuses. Dale tells them repeatedly, “I’ve got nothing to live for.”
As one officer tells her to stand up, she says, “I’ve got a gun. A gun. A real gun.”
“You’re gonna have to (expletive) kill me,” she tells deputies.
“I don’t want to kill you,” the deputy replies. “I want you to stand up and walk towards me.”
“You ain’t gonna have a choice,” she tells him.
As one deputy attempts to talk her down, another asks the others if she has a knife. Dale tells them she has a gun and the barrel is in her mouth.
“She does have a gun,” another says.
“It’s in her mouth. It’s in her mouth,” one deputy says while Copher can be heard saying, “Back up, guys. Back up.”
“Don’t move, Donna,” a deputy close to Copher says.
Another deputy is still trying to talk her down, asking if she remembers him from a previous incident involving her brother, and saying, “Donna, please.”
After Copher fires a single shot, they all move in to find the rifle in Dale’s mouth was a BB gun.
The video can be viewed online at www.fbnewsleader.com.
hdorman@fbnewsleader.com
