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A struggle between an Alachua County sheriff’s lieutenant and an 18-year-old Gainesville man on a busy city street ended Friday afternoon with the deputy fatally shooting the man, whom witnesses reported had attacked the deputy and tried to grab his gun. Nicholous Vertex Weeks died after Lt. Mike Hanson, a longtime officer at the Sheriff’s Office, fired multiple shots at him just south of the intersection of Northwest 39th Avenue and 34th Street, the Gainesville Police Department reported.
The shooting occurred shortly before 1 p.m. after a flood of 911 calls reported that a man was on foot and weaving through traffic on the roadway, where he tried to pull at least one woman into or from a car as well as knock out other motorists’ windows, police said. Treated after the fight for facial injuries, cuts, bruises and bite marks, Hanson was placed on administrative leave with pay, per Sheriff’s Office protocol. He has been with the agency approximately 13 years, is head of the office’s Civil Bureau and has no history involving the use of deadly force, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Gainesville Police were conducting a criminal investigation into the shooting, while an internal investigation was launched by the Sheriff’s Office. The State Attorney’s Office, which sent an investigator to the scene, has routinely presented officer-related shootings in the county to a grand jury.
Late Friday, police still were trying to piece together what happened that led to the shooting and why Weeks, who initial reports said was unarmed, allegedly confronted drivers before attacking Hanson. During that attack, Hanson shot Weeks with his Taser stun gun, but the man got up after being stunned and continued to fight with the deputy, police said. Some of Weeks’ family and friends were at the scene of the shooting, including his mother, who was being comforted about her son’s death. Some declined interviews or said they did not know what had happened.
Jennifer Weeks, the man’s grandmother, reached by phone at her northeast Gainesville home, said she did not know details about the shooting but had been told her grandson was shot seven times. Police would not confirm Friday how many times Weeks was shot, although they did report that multiple shots were fired. Jennifer Weeks had just seen the young man, whom she called Nick, the night before. He had just returned to the area from Ocala, she said, and seemed fine as he talked to her at her home.
The young man was born and raised in the Gainesville area, his grandmother said. He had been a student at Santa Fe College during the summer and fall of 2008. SFC officials said he was enrolled in an adult education program.
Police listed him as a resident at Village Green Apartments, 3101 N.E. 15th St., although people at the complex’s office said they did not recognize him as a resident.Weeks had a prior history of criminal traffic charges and two warrants for failing to appear on two of the pending traffic cases. There were no reports that officers were attempting to serve the warrants before the incident between Weeks and the deputy occurred. Weeks also had a prior juvenile criminal history, which was characterized by an individual familiar with the history as minor.
While officers had more questions than answers about what occurred before the fight and deadly encounter between Hanson and Weeks, police said they had about 25 witnesses to the shooting. “The deputy was in a fight for his life,” Gainesville Police spokesman Lt. Keith Kameg said. “The attack became very violent, very quickly.”
One motorist, Tiffany Curtis, 21, of Gainesville, described how she was driving north on Northwest 34th Street when she saw a man walking down the middle of the road yelling at motorists. Curtis said she had never seen the man before when he looked her in the eye, came close to her car and then tried to grab her. “It was almost like he lunged at me,” Curtis said.The man yanked at her shoulders through the car’s open windows, Curtis said. Inside the car with Curtis was her infant son, but the man didn’t seem to realize there was a baby inside. “I had to swerve away and speed up,” she said, to get the man to let her go.
When Curtis looked back, she said she saw the man apparently arguing with another woman in a white car. A girl was with them. The man appeared to be angry, she said, while it looked as if the woman was trying to get him to calm down.Police later reported they thought the people in the white car were Weeks’ relatives, including his mother, who might have witnessed events, including his death. Weeks might have exited the white car in the area before the confrontations with other drivers, police said.
Curtis said that after the man tried to grab her, she drove away and called 911. When she was asked by officials to return to the area, Weeks and the deputy had already fought and Weeks was dead, she said.
Kameg said Hanson, who was on duty and in uniform, was in the area but not responding to the 911 calls when he came across the disturbance in the roadway. Hanson was in a car not marked with the normal green and white of the Sheriff’s Office but one equipped with lights, a cage and other equipment typical of a law enforcement vehicle.
Sheriff Sadie Darnell said Hanson got out of the vehicle to try and help.
Police said witnesses told them Weeks then attacked Hanson, who used his Taser to stop the other man. Weeks went down but got up after the Taser was deployed and resumed his fight with the officer, who tried to disengage himself, police said. “Weeks kept coming at the deputy,” Kameg said.
“It was a down-and-dirty, intense fight,” Darnell said.
Hanson then fired at the man, fatally wounding him, according to police.
The deputy had injuries to his head and face, including bite marks, Darnell said.
Other officers at the scene said Hanson’s radio had been broken, his glasses smashed and that there were pieces of his gear that had fallen off or were torn from his uniform.Witnesses, some of whom provided pictures and video from their phones, said Weeks was on top of Hanson, whom he had knocked to the ground and had tried to choke, officers said.Darnell said she was confident, based on initial reports she had received, that Hanson acted as necessary.
“Today is law enforcement memorial day, and we almost lost one,” she said. “According to citizens, this man was going for his firearm.
“Nobody wants to deal with having to take someone’s life,” Darnell said, but reports from witnesses were that the officer was “heroic” in dealing with the situation.
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