By Michaela Mulligan
Source Tampa Bay Times
WIMAUMA, FL— An armed man held his girlfriend hostage for 9½ hours early Wednesday morning after Hillsborough deputies identified him as a suspect in a man’s death, according to Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister. The situation ended when a SWAT team member fired a single shot, ultimately killing the man.
The incident began unfolding just before midnight in the 5600 block of Center Street in Wimauma, according to Chronister, who spoke to the media Wednesday.
The county’s emergency communications center received a call from someone who reported that a friend had asked him to come over and get rid of some trash, but when the caller arrived at the house, he realized the “trash” his friend had been referring to was a dead body, according to Chronister.
The body was wrapped in plastic and laid across the backseat of a parked vehicle, Chronister said. The man made an excuse to leave the area and then called authorities, the sheriff said.
Chronister identified the caller’s friend as Juan Sarmiento, 42.
The caller pointed deputies toward a property located in the 5600 block of State Road 674, where they found the vehicle and the body of a man with upper body trauma, according to a media release from the Sheriff’s Office. They also heard the voices of a man and a woman coming from a small shed about two feet away from the vehicle where the body was, according to Chronister.
When deputies asked the individuals to come out of the shed, which was locked, a man started shouting profanities, Chronister said. He said the man was Sarmiento, and that Sarmiento told deputies he had a hostage.
Deputies grabbed a crowbar and tried to pry open the shed to get to the hostage, Chronister said. Chronister did not name the hostage, but he described her as Sarmiento’s girlfriend.
When Sarmiento told deputies he had a gun, the deputies followed Sheriff’s Office protocol and moved away from the shed, Chronister said. The county’s SWAT, bomb disposal and crisis negotiation teams then were called to the scene, according to a media release from the Sheriff’s Office.
Chronister described Sarmiento’s behavior as erratic.
“At some point during this negotiation — this 9½-hour negotiation, where most individuals start to deescalate, they start to calm down, we start to make some progress in obtaining that peaceful resolution, he was just the opposite,” Chronister said. “He became even more hostile.”
According to Chronister, SWAT team members could see Sarmiento through a small window in the shed, waving around a firearm.
Sarmiento told those at the scene he intended to die that day and that he would not let the woman go, according to the Sheriff’s Office. He also said “that things will go boom,” Chronister said.
Near the end of the standoff, one SWAT team member could see Sarmiento through the window of the shed. That person fired a single gunshot, striking Sarmiento in the upper torso, Chronister said.
After Sarmiento was shot, the SWAT team got the woman out of the shed, Chronister said. Sarmiento was transported to South Bay Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Chronister said he is choosing not to name the SWAT team member who fired the shot because he is an undercover detective.
The Sheriff’s Office said it does not know the identity of the body found in the parked vehicle, Chronister said.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the SWAT team member’s shooting of Sarmiento.
State Road 674 between Seventh and Maggie streets was closed during the standoff Wednesday. Chronister was not sure when the road would reopen.
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