Two women face obstruction and other charges related to the incident in which Marion County sheriff’s deputies fatally shot a suspect who killed a K9 in February. Authorities say the deputies fired upon the man after he shot the police dog as they responded to a 911 domestic violence call.
The charges stem from a state police investigator accidentally leaving his state-issued recording device in the car belonging to the sister of the suspect’s girlfriend, according to arrest records.
The investigator had used the device to interview the girlfriend after the incident happened outside her home on Northeast 144th Court, just off of State Road 40, authorities say.
When the investigator, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Glenn Warkentien, tried to get the recorder back, the women rebuffed him, according to arrest records and a review of body camera video footage obtained by WUFT News. The women said they would only give it back if allowed back into the girlfriend’s house, according to the video.
By then, 15 hours after the shooting, the house was under a separate investigation because of suspected drug activity there, according to a spokesman for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
According to 911 records, Lisa Lundberg, 38, of Charlotte, North Carolina, called 911 at 6 a.m. on Feb. 17 and said Jeremy Bradsher, 44, of Wilmington, North Carolina – the boyfriend of her sister, Lori Robertson – was threatening to kill both women.
Sheriff’s deputies found Robertson safe at a friend’s house and the 911 call was downgraded in priority by 6:20 a.m., according to the 911 records, which did not say where Lundberg was at the time or where she had called from.
However, the deputies returned to Robertson’s house almost three hours later and called for more units to respond, including Leo, a 4-year-old Belgian Shepherd, before approaching the property on foot. Bradsher was talking to them from the backyard, out of their view. He then stepped in plain view and raised his gun, authorities said.
Leo was released toward Bradsher, who fired his weapon at the dog, wounding him.
The deputies immediately fired their guns at Bradsher, wounding him as well.
Bradsher was pronounced dead at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital later that day, according to Zachary Moore, a spokesman for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Leo died three days later at an animal hospital in Gainesville.
It was unclear when Warkentien realized he didn’t have his recorder, or how long passed before he asked the women to give it back. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which investigates police-involved shootings, declined to answer WUFT’s questions about the case.
Moore said in an email that Warkentien needed the recorder back “with such immediacy because it contained investigative interviews” about the deaths of Bradsher and Leo.
“The fact that the information contained on the recorder was vital to the continuation of his investigation, coupled with the possibility that the recorder could be damaged or tampered with, deemed it necessary for it to be promptly returned,” Moore wrote.
Near the beginning of the body camera video captured by sheriff’s deputy Ryan Weaver, Warkentien and other law enforcement personnel approach Lundberg and Robertson and ask for the recorder. The women insist on being allowed back into the house.
Within 10 seconds, Robertson is handcuffed. Lundberg is as well right after.
A couple of minutes after she’s placed in the back of a police car, she tells Warkentien that she threw the recorder in the trunk of her vehicle, which is a short distance away.
Warkentien and Weaver then search the trunk but are unable to find it amid a lot of items that appear to include alcoholic and other beverages as well as baskets of clothing. Weaver goes back to get Lundberg, who is saying she’s struggling to breathe and having a panic attack.
“I can see that,” Weaver says, though he does not move to help her, even when she says she can’t walk. Moments later, Robertson screams that the women had not consented to a vehicle search. “Leave them alone, Lori,” Lundberg yells as she struggles to walk to the trunk.
Once at her car, Lundberg asks to be freed from her handcuffs so she can search for the recorder. Warkentien declines to do so. He finds it in a basket of clothes four minutes later.
During the half-hour encounter, Robertson said she never touched the recorder and complained that no one had followed up with her after the shooting despite telling her they would do so.
According to arrest records, the sisters both smelled of alcohol and were “belligerent.” Lundberg’s panic attacks were referred to as “discomfort,” but she is also reported to have later vomited in the back of the police car.
In the video, the authorities discuss what charges to assign to the women, with one officer asking Warkentien how expensive his recorder was and whether it would amplify a petty theft charge.
After the trunk search, Lundberg sobs as she is returned to the police car.
“Please don’t close the door, though, I’m claustrophobic,” Lundberg begs. “I need my medication. I can’t go without my medication for more than a couple hours.”
Lundberg had earlier told Weaver she takes medication for depression and anxiety.
She told a WUFT reporter via text in March that Bradsher had never threatened her.
In the body camera video, Lundberg, after being read her Miranda rights at the Marion County Jail, tells Weaver that she had one beer three to four hours earlier and that Robertson had some wine coolers, but “nothing major.”
After impounding and searching both women’s cars, the authorities found in Robertson’s vehicle a flask with alcohol in the driver’s side cup holder, an empty tumbler with white residue, a clear container of methamphetamine in the glove box and a handgun, according to arrest records.
Lundberg is facing charges of obstruction of an officer without violence, DUI and petty theft.
She also texted a WUFT reporter that she travels to and from North Carolina for her court hearings in Ocala. Her lawyer, Jimmie Sparrow, declined to comment about the case.
Robertson, who owns The Hog’s Pen, a used motorcycle business in Silver Springs, is facing charges of obstruction, possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. Prosecutors dropped two earlier charges against her: DUI and driving without a valid license.
Both women are free on bail and awaiting their next court dates.
Robertson told WUFT at her arraignment in March that she had no comment on her charges or the situation, and said she would take legal action if reporting on the incident or arrests continued. She said she was not present during the shooting.
“My boyfriend died,” she said.