STOCK ISLAND, Fla. – A deputy fatally shot an armed 15-year-old girl in the Lower Florida Keys Monday morning, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
MCSO spokesperson Adam Linhardt said deputies responded to a call just after 5:20 a.m. regarding a suicidal girl “who had stolen a firearm, broke off an attached gun lock, and walked to a remote location on Stock Island.”
Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay told Local 10 News said deputies tracked the girl’s general location using her phone, then found a hammer and the broken gun lock on the ground.
He told Local 10 News that deputies were “begging” the girl to put the gun down as she pointed the gun at herself. She then pointed it at deputies, he said, and a sergeant opened fire.
A witness, who asked not to be identified, described what he heard during the encounter in an interview with Local 10 News.
“They were telling her to ‘put the gun down,’ ‘put the gun down,’ quite a few times,” the witness said. “Then about eight minutes later than that, all the shots rang out.”
The witness said he believes the girl fired the gun once before deputies arrived.
Linhardt said after the shooting, deputies called for medics and rendered aid, but the girl, whose name hasn’t been released, was pronounced dead at Lower Keys Medical Center.
“This incident is a tragedy for everyone involved,” Ramsay said in a news release Monday afternoon. “While the Deputy appears to have acted in self-defense, I have asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an independent investigation to ensure transparency.”
Authorities haven’t publicly identified the deputy who opened fire as of Monday evening.