GPD releases video of police officers pulling man out of pond and attempting to resuscitate him

Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Gainesville Police Department has released unredacted body-worn camera video of the traffic stop of Tyreick Lewis and attempts to rescue him after he fled into a pond and was unable to keep his head above water. The video contains graphic content, and viewer discretion is advised.
Before releasing the video, GPD leadership met with Lewis’ mother so she could view the footage privately and ask any questions; she has requested that the media respect her privacy.
The video begins with Officer Casey Walsh initiating a traffic stop on a scooter and then telling the dispatcher the suspect was not stopping; she follows this up by saying he crashed and ran into the woods.
Walsh goes back to her car, gets her K-9 out, and holds him, calling out to Lewis that he will get “dog bit” if he doesn’t come out. Because Lewis was not suspected of committing a violent or domestic crime, she could not use the K-9 to track Lewis under GPD’s policies.
While waiting for backup, Walsh calls in the tag of the scooter, noting that the registration was “old.” The dispatcher replied that the scooter’s registration had expired in 2018, and it had been reported stolen.
Sergeant Charles Owens arrives and heads into the woods to find the suspect; Walsh separately searches in the woods until Owens calls out that the suspect was in a pond, at which point she runs toward Owens’ location.
In the next clip, you can hear Lewis struggling for breath while Owens encourages him to “keep bouncing” and “swim out.” Walsh tells another K-9 officer to get his 30-foot leash from his car while Owens wades into the water. Owens tells Walsh that the bottom of the pond is “thick” and will “suck me down.” He gets out of the water, and the two officers continue to encourage Lewis to “come to me, brother” and “keep bouncing.”
When the leash arrives, Owens wades back into the pond and throws the leash out, but it’s not long enough to reach Lewis. Another officer wades in and grabs the leash, and then a third officer wades in. Owens continues to encourage Lewis to “keep your head up!”
Owens grabs Lewis, and the other officers start pulling them in. As soon as Lewis is out of the pond, officers begin CPR while waiting for EMS to arrive. Officers urge Lewis to breathe: “Come on, buddy! Breathe, buddy!”
When Lewis starts breathing again, officers transfer him to a nylon stretcher and begin CPR again until they detect a “weak pulse.” They then carry him out to the road.
Officers continued to administer CPR until EMS arrives, then EMS takes over.
While EMS works on Lewis, Owens can be heard saying he thought he “was going to go, too.” He says to the other officers, “I’m gonna be honest, you guys saved my life. If I hadn’t wrapped that leash around my wrist like I did, and grabbed onto him–because I wasn’t giving up, man. If y’all weren’t able to pull me, I was done.” He says his boots had sunk into the sludge and that he should have taken them off. [Editor’s note: profanity in quotes has been removed.]
Owens explains to other officers that by the time he worked his way out to Lewis, Lewis had gone under, “so I’m down there trying to dig for him,” but all he could feel was hair, so he grabbed Lewis’ hair and pulled him until he could grab his armpit. He said he was exhausted at that point and told the other officers to pull them in with the leash.
After telling other officers what had happened in the pond, Owens asks whether Lewis is breathing; the answer is not audible.
Walsh appears to be distraught, and Owens tells her this is not her fault because if her K-9 had been allowed to track Lewis, they would have found him several minutes sooner and might have saved him before he went under; he points out that if she and Owens had not gone into the woods, it’s possible Lewis would never have been found. Walsh says, “It should not have been us going into that water; it should have been a dog… I’m not worried about what I did; I’m worried about what I could’ve did.”
Thank you GPD Officers for doing all you can to save his life. I know you will be struggling to make sense of this all.
Unfortunately, there will be people that will blame you for his death. At the end of the day, if HE hadn’t stolen the scooter and ran, he would be alive. Hell, Judge Green would have let him out ROR. This is very sad for the family.
He didn’t steal the scooter. He was using what he thought was a friend’s scooter. He didn’t know it was stolen. 😕 Either way tyreik is gone and he has a baby and a family. Be respectful
Excellent life saving attempt by GPD. They went beyond what most people and even some officers would do in this situation. They used everything they had available at the time and thought outside of the box. It is unfortunate the scooter guy lost his life by his own decisions that night.
Are they saying their K-9 could have found the suspect sooner, if it was there then? GPD don’t get paid enough for this. Why aren’t District 1 schools and parents teaching how to respect cops better, even in a college town?
Maybe if they had immediately went in after him and hadn’t stood at the edge of the water saying “I’m not coming in after you bruh”, they might have gotten him in time
Citizen,
Consider this. How much water rescue training do the GPD officers get? What if the officer didn’t know how to swim? Clearly they were not equipped to rescue someone in a pond. Fortunately, someone had a rope to use. Probably a personal rope. Not one issued by GPD. Their funding has been cut so much by the commissioners they are risking their own safety to help others.
Then there is the obvious answer: if he hadn’t run, none of this would’ve happened.
And that earns the DA comment award. Have you ever had to into a swamp or pond laden with vegetation to retrieve a person struggling or worse. I have on two different occasions. The inherent risk that you take to your own safety is immense. Between dealing with logs, vines, leaves, soggy bottom, and wildlife you have no idea what the person in the water is doing especially if he is a criminal. The officers are going to use every ploy to get the guy to swim towards them or to shore. The key point here us that this rocket scientist decided to run from officers and thought it would be good to evade them through a pond. Well it didnt work out so well for him. No one asked those officers to go into the water after him but they did without question. Bad thing happen when you run from the police. Sooner or later it catches up with you. A grown man acting like adolescent 5 year old. So once again you earned the dumb— award for the day.
Along with your self…..
Maybe if the had not made a conscious decision to run from the police, into water, which apparently cannot swim. How is this the police fault. How about take some accountability for yourself. Wow, that is an idea.
Maybe if he hadn’t run, he wouldn’t have been in the water to begin with. Just maybe though.
They did an amazing job. Officer Walsh and Owens and the others. Makes me proud to live with in Gainesville…something by I don’t say often. Thank you GPD And I’m so glad none of you were hurt.
At least he didn’t get bit by the dog – even if he drowned as an unintended consequence. Good job, Curry. Shining a light down from the GPD helicopter might have helped, too (if we still had a helicopter).
This is in no way the officers’ fault. And they went above and beyond the call of duty by jumping into that pond- they truly represent the best amongst us. God bless them and may they continue to move forward in life and prosper.
They tried….We used to free-dive in a quarry. We would pick up a five-ten pound rock and swim out, the rock would sink us and we would drop it when we got down where we wanted. The officers wear equipment weighing a lot more than that. They would sink like that stone. They tried….
Running toward danger to save another – that is the definition of heroic. Thank you, GPD.
I am so sad for the family of Mr. Lewis. This is tragic for them, and also for the police officers who may be asking what if questions for awhile. Life can change so dramatically in an instant – seemingly small decisions made in haste or panic can change the course of life for so many.
While I am sympathetic to the family of Mr. Lewis, and understand that this video release may be painful for them, I’m glad it was released so diffuse any accusations against the police officers.
This is also an opportunity to rethink the rules regarding the use of police dogs. This specific loss of life could have been mitigated if the police dog had been allowed to help both find Mr. Lewis and also go into the water to save him sooner.
As is with most departments around the country, ‘when you’re right no one remembers, when you’re wrong no one forgets.’ Great job for the rescue!
“Because Lewis was not suspected of committing a violent or domestic crime, she could not use the K-9 to track Lewis under current GPD policies”
What a shame. As fast as those dogs run they probably would have caught him before he ran into the pond, but….the previous screams of “dogs are racist” altered GPD policies.
Lou,
FACTS!!
Thanks for posting
They just sat there watching him die not wanting to get their clothes wet but soon as he’s gone under and drowned they run out there they should be charged
Charged with what. Not providing swim lessons? Not providing a Swim float. He was actively trying to get away for a time while he was in the water. After he began to show signs of distress the officers risked their own well being to go into the water after this idiot. Maybe they should gave just called ASO to get their water patrol or dive team to come. NOPE, the officers did their job. As I’ve said previously, the amount of debris, man made trash and perhaps other stolen objects hidden in the water, along with the fact that his guy choose to run, no one told him to run, no one told him to go into the pond. Gpd had enough empathy to show his mother the videos and answer any questions she had. I dont see her protesting any of it. No Name you have earned the DUMB— Award for Wednesday.
this man needs to go back to school :/
If GPD isn’t allowed to use the dog in circumstances where there is no violent offense, then why did the officer bring the dog at all? This story doesn’t make sense.
They have a shotgun in the back of the cruiser also, but there are rules on when they are allowed to deploy it.
Wonder how many tickets she’s written for people hanging things from the rear view mirror obstructing their view, but that’s alright if SHE does it, right.
Thank you GPD for risking your life to try to save this young man. Fear may have driven him into the pond, but no one will ever know. Of course GPD will get blamed one way or the other, because of the “chase”, and Mr Lewis may or may not have known the scooter was stolen, but something happened to cause him to run. The instructions by the department to keep bouncing and not go in the pond, were to keep him focused, but as soon as he saw him struggling he attempted to go in, but if you read the article, the officer said had he not had that rope, he would have gone down too. I appreciate the efforts of all of the officers, and my heart goes out to the family and friends of Mr Lewis.
Big thanks to GPD for there heroic actions
the officers did the impossible to save him but things happen,
I respect them for trying and maybe this could be a lesson for people to not disrespect police. not all police is bad
they have earned my Respect
Yawn. Stole (my) bike and now dead. Goodbye.