all right good morning my name is David Danzig I'm Chief Deputy at the pelis County Sheriff's Office I'm joined by police chief Anthony Holloway of the St Petersburg Police Department going to give you a quick briefing on the events that occurred this morning regarding a officer involved shooting by the St Petersburg Police Department as you guys know this is an ongoing and fluent investigation the information I'm going to provide is what we know at the time it's subject to change as the investigation unfolds today so St Petersburg Police received a call at approximately 4:10 this morning about shots fired in the area of 2800 Fremont terrrace South which is behind me here officers were on scene within four minutes the first two officers that arrived were officer Austin herd a t n h eard d and Officer Steve Blanda b l n da the call notes indicated that there was a subject dressed in all black that had been firing shots in this particular area officers heard and Blanda parked over on 28 Street exited her vehicle and began approaching uh from east to west down the alleyway towards uh Fremont when they got down to the end of the alleyway they came out and encountered a parked van on the street standing in the doorway of a park of the parked van was a gentleman uh Dressed in all black that fit the description and he had a handgun and a cell phone in his hand the officers then began giving the subject commands to drop the gun they identified themselves police dropped the gun dropped the gun dropped the gun during this conversation the gentleman turned and pointed the gun towards them turned and raised towards them officer heard then fired between two and three shots striking the subject in the abdomen area after he was shot the officers moved up and provided first aid until fire rescue arrived the subject is named Vernon v r n o n a Miller m i l l e r he's 47 years old he was transported down to uh Bayfront Orlando Health and he's in critical condition down there he uh is a four-time convicted felon from what we know at this point but we're still looking into his um criminal history I'll take any questions he try to that we don't know at this point uh we have not been able to locate the original caller uh there is a gun obviously uh that was present we that's at the scene in the scene now um there's a spent shell casing in the scene that does not appear to be a law enforcement round so we have not been able at this point to locate the original collar of the shots fired but there is evidence to suggest that he had fired a shot with the shell casing on the ground we don't have a victim of that at this point were there any words exchanged or anything said between the officers and him up to it no the officers came down the alleyway when they came out of the alleyway obviously their attention was drawn to him because he was standing in this doorway of this van and they saw immediately saw that he had a gun and they started giving him commands and they said that he he said some things back but it was kind of just mumbling back if you will um back it didn't appear to be any anything that was of significance did the subject shoot in a home and was this on body cam video yeah so the officers were wearing body cam video yeah they had they had their body camers on um as far as the the suspect shooting yes so we don't there's no evidence of anything that there's any shot homes uh at this point but we're still out canvasing we haven't received any calls of that there's a spent shell casing that's not law enforcement that's at the scene where the suspect was but we don't know where that round went at this Point Are the officers on administrative leave that would be a question for chief hway yes he'll be placed on administrative leave and P investigation so from what we can tell at this point he may be living in the van the van shows evidence that he's living in the van it looks like from just a cursory look at St petersburg's uh history with him it looks like the officers have had contact with him recently and he's been identified as being homeless or transia so it looks like he may be living in the but I'm not 100% sure just Rec because of shots fir in the neighborhood correct in in the area yes the the specific address that the call came in for the shots fired it was the 2800 block of Fremont Terrace South so the officers parked back behind me off of 28th Street and got out on foot and we're coming down the alleyway uh just south of there to approach that area on foot do we know where the suspect was shot in the abdomen area time the call came in at 0410 and the officers were here within 4 minutes so 4:14 is FD involved no ma'am so uh as you guys know the penel county uh law enforcement we have the penel county use of deadly force task force so under that agreement by all the police departments um the police departments don't investigate their own officer involved shooting so the task force in is investigating it the pelis county sheriff office is the lead on the task force investigation this morning along with the pelis park uh police department and the Clearwater Police Department so St Petersburg Police will not be conducting the investigation we conduct an independent uh investigation of the shooting Chief how are your officers um obviously this is a a scary situation that they have to run into danger the officer is a little bit shaken up just like anyone else but he'll be fine uh and then like I said the suspect uh is in critical condition so we're going to be monitoring that again also going to be placed on administrative Leave paid administrative leave but he also have to go through several testing before we put him back on the road does anybody have anything else yeah so it's Vernon v r n o n middle initial of a last of Miller m i l l r and his birth date is January 25th of 1977 so he's 47 years old and then as far as the off officers Officer herd has been on the department uh one year and officer Blanda looks like he's been on about two and a half years on the St Petersburg prart anybody else have any other questions thank you thank you