Body cam video shows moments before Hillsborough deputies fatally shoot man

RIVERVIEW — Hillsborough sheriff’s Deputy Timothy Miskell ordered Dylan Ray Scott to show his hands. Soon, his tone changed to a plea.

Seconds earlier on Tuesday night, Scott, 27, had sped away from Miskell and other Hillsborough deputies who were trying to arrest him on outstanding warrants at a McDonald’s on Bloomingdale Avenue. Then Scott’s pickup truck crashed into a passing minivan.

As Miskell’s body camera rolled, he ran to the driver’s window of the truck. Scott can be heard saying something that sounds like, “I got a pistol.”

“Yeah? Show me your f--king hands!” Miskell responds. Seconds later, Miskell said, “C’mon, man. It’s not worth it.

“We do not take anything personally and I do not want to shoot you, but if you don’t show me your hands, that’s what’s gonna happen. Put your hands up. Please don’t make me do this.”

Scott can be heard in the video saying the gun is in his waistband. A minute later, he appears to make a sudden movement and Miskell and other deputies unload a barrage of rounds into the truck.

Scott was hit a number of times and pronounced dead at Tampa General Hospital, Sheriff Chad Chronister said at a news conference.

“The deputies did an absolutely textbook job of trying to get him to surrender himself, stopping short of begging him not to reach for this firearm that he said that he had,” Chronister said.

Instead, the sheriff said, Scott “takes that overt action to reach toward the firearm where he said (it) was located,” and the deputies opened fire.

The Sheriff’s Office released four minutes of footage from Miskell’s body camera on Wednesday. The office also revealed Wednesday that in July, Scott’s mother told a detective her son had left a note at her house saying he was pursuing “suicide by cop.”

Investigators did not find a gun in the truck after the shooting Wednesday, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

No deputies were injured in the encounter. The driver of the minivan was taken to a local hospital to be treated for chest pains, Chronister said.

Warning: This four-minute video from a deputy’s body camera contains profane language and a fatal shooting at the end.

The Sheriff’s Office said the deputies involved in the shooting are Miskell, who has five years with the office; Sgt. Michael Hannaford, an 18-year veteran of the office; Corporal Steven Schneider, who has been at the office for 11 years; and Deputy Devin Wooden, a 15-year-veteran.

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The four deputies have been placed on standard administrative leave while FDLE investigates the shooting. The Sheriff’s Office is among local law enforcement agencies that agreed this year to have the department investigate fatal shootings and in-custody deaths.

The encounter began when deputies located Scott about 10 p.m. Tuesday, sitting in a pickup truck parked outside the McDonald’s at 11007 Bloomingdale Ave. near the intersection of Providence Road, according to a Sheriff’s Office news release and details Chronister provided during the news conference.

Scott was wanted on warrants for grand theft and resisting arrest. A woman was sitting in the truck’s passenger seat and got out of the truck before the shooting.

Mizell and other deputies approached Scott, told him he was under arrest and ordered him to get out of the truck. The tension-filled four minutes of footage from Mizell’s camera begins at that point.

“Instead of surrendering himself, he punched the gas on his truck, went out of the parking lot, down the ravine, the embankment, and out into the busy road here on Bloomingdale Avenue at which time he struck an innocent driver who was driving on the roadway,” Chronister said.

Chronister said Scott repeated a number of times, “I have a gun.” As deputies ran up to the truck, Scott can be heard on the video yelling what sounds like “I got a pistol” a number of times.

“Does he have a gun?” a deputy shouts.

“He’s got a gun,” Miskell responds, apparently basing that on Scott’s own claims.

As they continue to tell Scott to show his hands, Miskell and the deputies can be heard trying to reason with Scott, whose face is illuminated by Miskell’s flashlight. They tell him his warrants are not that serious.

“You’ll be out of jail tomorrow, man, just show us your hands,” another deputy can be heard saying.

Scott is partially blocked from the camera’s view by a tinted window, but at some points in the video his left hand and arm are visible moving near his waist.

Miskell tells Scott to look at him and talk to him.

“It is not worth it,” Miskell says. “You are gonna die right there in that passenger seat if you don’t show me your hands. I know you’re hurting right now. We’ll get you help.”

Miskell asks Scott where the gun is.

“It’s in my waistband,” Scott replies.

“Ok, don’t reach for it, don’t reach for it,” Miskell says. “The warrants that you have right now, you’ll get a bond. But if you make a bad decision right now, it could cost your life. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? And I’m begging you to not make that choice.”

A minute later, just after Miskell tells Scott, “You’re good,” Scott makes the movement that prompts Miskell and other deputies to open fire.

Scott’s arrest history in Hillsborough County dates to 2014. Records show between 2014 and 2017, he served two stints in Florida state prison for aggravated assault, burglary, fleeing from law enforcement, methamphetamine possession, resisting a law enforcement officer with violence, battery on a law enforcement officer and driving with a suspended license.

On July 27, according to the Sheriff’s Office, detectives spotted Scott in the area of Woodberry and Falkenburg roads and tried to arrest him on warrants for criminal mischief, burglary, reckless driving and driving without a valid license. Deputies say Scott fled in a stolen Mercedes Benz.

Two days later, on July 29, Scott’s mother contacted a detective and told him Scott “had left a note at her residence claiming he wants to die via suicide by cop,” according to an “officer safety” bulletin the Sheriff’s Office issued that day. Records show Scott was arrested that day and released on Aug. 2 after posting bail.

At the time of that arrest, Scott’s home address was listed in jail records as Hazy Meadow Court in Brandon and he was working as a laborer for a construction company. Efforts by the Times to reach his mother and sister were unsuccessful on Wednesday.

The Sheriff’s Office issued body cameras to its deputies earlier this year. At Tuesday’s news conference, Chronister said his office would release the footage as soon as possible.

“That’s the reason we have them,” Chronister said, speaking of the cameras. “We want to be completely transparent.”