Clay County Sheriff’s Office and Orange Park Police Department were there when a guy wanted for murder in Broward County (Fort Lauderdale) was shot and killed.
At about 10:09 p.m. Friday, Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters, and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Chief of Investigation Alan Parker went live on Facebook to tell the public what was going on.
In connection with an ongoing murder case, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office asked the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) SWAT team for help getting a search warrant for the home and car of Zonchez Prince, 39, in Jacksonville. Parker said that the search warrant was given by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office about a week before the officer-involved shooting on May 19.
A press release from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office says that shots were fired near the 2300 block of Northwest Sixth Street in Pompano Beach on Friday, May 12, just before 3 a.m. Deputies from the Broward County Sheriff’s Department and Pompano Beach Fire and Rescue went to the scene.
On the scene, detectives found a 32-year-old man named Andrew Ford who had been shot. Until Pompano Beach Fire and Rescue came, the deputies did what they could to save the person’s life. Ford was taken to a nearby hospital by paramedics, where he was later declared dead.
The press release said that after more research, detectives found that the homicide was done by Zonchez Prince and his brother Brandon Prince, who is 34 years old.
Investigators from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office carried out the Broward County search order and found two pistols, one at Zonchez Prince’s home and the other in his car, said Parker. Then, on Thursday, May 18, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office put out an arrest warrant for Prince and again asked the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for help with the case.
A SWAT team from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office found Prince in a black car in the parking lot of the Village Shopping Center in the 1100 block of U.S. 17. This was on Friday, May 19. Sheriff Cook said that the officers called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, which sent help in the form of police to the area.
Parker said that the Jacksonville SWAT team tried to get in touch with Prince by blocking his car with three police cars. They talked to him and saw that the back window of the car was broken and that Prince was sitting in the front driver’s seat with the window partly down.
Parker said that Prince told the police that he wasn’t going to get out of the car.
“It’s up to you to shoot me. “You will have to kill me,” Prince told the police.
At this point, Prince pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the police. Parker said that two JSO officers quickly “eliminated the threat” by firing at him through the window of the driver’s seat. SWAT team members then helped Prince, but he died from his injuries.
Both the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and the Orange Park Police Department were there, but neither was directly involved in the killing or the investigation into Prince.
Sheriff Waters said that police don’t have to be shot first before they can use deadly force (like shooting at a suspect).
During the Friday night news conference, Waters told a reporter, “Let me address that quickly. I want to explain this to you.” “A police officer doesn’t have to wait until someone shoots at them before using deadly force. That has never been okay, and it’s still not okay now. So, they did what they did, followed the rules, and things turned out the way they did.”
As per policy, the two Jacksonville cops who used deadly force are on administrative leave because this is their second time being involved in a shooting. Parker said that this is the seventh shooting involving a police officer in Jacksonville this year.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the Florida State Attorney’s Office are in charge of the investigation into the cops. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office said that no one knows how long the investigation will take to finish.
“Investigations like this can take a few months or even up to a year,” she said.
The Duval and Broward County Clerk’s Offices say that Prince has a home in the 1800 block of Northwest First Terrace in Pompano Beach, as well as a home in the 400 block of Century 21 Drive in Jacksonville.
On May 21, 2018, Brandon Prince was found in Fort Lauderdale by officers from Broward County. He was taken to the Broward County Jail after a traffic stop by deputies. He is charged with murder in the first degree, and the probe is still going on.