August 8, 2024 – Cripple Audits

Where it all began

The Arrest

The Morning of August 8, 2024

The incident began in a residence at 1114 Pisgah Place. Earlier that morning, K. Lynn Anderson had euthanized her last remaining pet, a dog. The atmosphere in the home was characterized by significant emotional stress.

Aaron J. Scott, a 48-year-old amputee and a Florida Concealed Weapons and Firearms License holder since 2008, received a Walmart delivery that included a new air fryer. When Mr. Scott attempted to set up the appliance, a verbal dispute ensued with his mother regarding the organization of the kitchen counter.

During the argument, Ms. Anderson threw a Kleenex box at Mr. Scott and initiated physical strikes. Mr. Scott, seated in a manual wheelchair, blocked the strikes and used his hands to push Ms. Anderson’s biceps to create distance. Out of frustration, Mr. Scott made a hyperbolic statement, comparing his situation to a previous suicide involving a friend’s brother. He later clarified that this was a rhetorical scenario used to express his frustration at being treated like a child, rather than a statement of intent.

The 911 Call and the Pretext

Following the argument, Mr. Scott retreated to his bedroom and closed the door. Ms. Anderson contacted a therapist at Peace River Center. The therapist subsequently contacted 911. During the call, the therapist reported that Mr. Scott had “punched [his mother] really hard” and claimed that due to a 1991 facial reconstruction, such a strike could be fatal.

The therapist also informed dispatch that Mr. Scott possessed a firearm and was concerned about his reaction to law enforcement. This information was relayed to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) dispatchers, who coded the call as a domestic battery and a mental health crisis (Signal 20).

The Arrival and Initial Contact

At 16:16 EDT, PCSO deputies arrived at the residence. Mr. Scott heard a loud knock at the door. Upon opening his bedroom door, he observed his mother exiting the house through the front door. Due to the layout of the residence, the front door opens directly into the path of the bedroom doorway; Mr. Scott had to close the front door to maneuver his wheelchair into the living room.

As Deputy Wade approached the steps, Mr. Scott backed his wheelchair into the living room and raised both hands. He proactively informed Deputy Wade that he had a 9mm pistol holstered to his wheelchair to ensure the deputy was aware of the weapon and to demonstrate a lack of hostile intent.

The Detention and Jurisdictional Dispute

Deputy Wade positioned himself at the doorway and asked, “What happened today?”

Mr. Scott immediately invoked his 5th and 6th Amendment rights, requesting that the invocation be announced to all deputies on the scene. Deputy Wade sarcastically complied with the request. When Mr. Scott asked for names and member IDs, he was told the information would be provided later.

Mr. Scott then asked if he was detained or free to go. Deputy Wade confirmed that Mr. Scott was detained and stated that if he attempted to leave the room, the deputy would enter and stop him. When asked for the Reasonable Articulable Suspicion (RAS) for the detention, Deputy Wade cited “Exigent Circumstance.”

Illegal Entry, Seizure of Property, and Excessive Force

The encounter transitioned from a detention to a high-risk seizure when Deputy Wade issued the directive: “I am going to secure your firearm.” Mr. Scott, understanding that a scene is not the appropriate venue for a legal debate but refusing to concede his rights, scoffed and responded, “No you’re not.“

In immediate response to this verbal refusal, Deputy Wade escalated the encounter by employing excessive force through the display of deadly force. He drew his service weapon with his right hand and held the pistol at a “ready position,” aimed directly at Mr. Scott’s torso (“Center Mass”). Despite Mr. Scott proactively showing he was not a threat—having already identified the firearm and keeping his hands raised and visible—Deputy Wade chose to point a loaded firearm at a man sitting in a wheelchair who cannot walk.

Radio Data Integration: Upon his initial arrival at the residence, Deputy Wade initiated a 10-33 (Emergency Traffic), clearing the radio channel before even making contact with Mr. Scott. This indicates the deputy arrived with a pre-determined intent to treat the encounter as a high-stakes emergency regardless of the actual conditions on the ground. Immediately following the seizure of Mr. Scott’s firearm, Wade transmitted a 10-98 10-33, signaling to dispatch that the “assignment was completed” and the emergency air could be cleared. This sequence confirms that the “emergency” was artificially maintained until the moment Mr. Scott was disarmed.

Mr. Scott chose to comply with the physical seizure while remaining vocal about his lack of consent. While maintaining the threat of his service weapon with his right hand, Deputy Wade reached his left arm across the threshold of the residence—breaking the plane of the home. He used his left hand to physically remove the Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm from the holster attached to the manual wheelchair. During this non-consensual seizure, Mr. Scott utilized his naturally loud, booming voice to issue the specific command: “Don’t come in my home and don’t touch my property.“

While the camera angle at that moment may not have fully captured the physical act of shouting, the command is clearly and unmistakably audible on the recording. Once the firearm was removed, Deputy Wade handed it to a secondary deputy. Notably, despite the stated intent to “secure” the weapon, the deputies did not clear the chamber or remove the magazine. The firearm—which features a safe-action trigger and no manual safety switch—remained in a “hot” condition with 17 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. The decision to keep a loaded service weapon aimed at Mr. Scott’s “center mass” during the seizure of a holstered weapon from a compliant man in a wheelchair constitutes a significant and unreasonable escalation of force.

Initial Contact with Master Deputy Covietz and Arrest

After Deputy Wade departed, Master Deputy Covietz addressed Mr. Scott directly, asking, “Why am I here?” Mr. Scott responded with a hyperbolic retort: “I don’t know, maybe your dad’s condom broke.” Covietz did not respond to the sarcasm and repeated his inquiry. Mr. Scott then stated that he had already invoked his 5th and 6th Amendment rights, at which point the interrogation ceased. While this specific exchange was not captured by the doorbell camera, it established the continued refusal of Mr. Scott to provide a statement without legal counsel.

Covietz then retreated to confer with other deputies on the scene. After a period of consultation, he returned to the door and issued the command: “You’re coming with us.” Mr. Scott asked for clarification on his status, asking, “10-15?” (Arrested). Covietz confirmed, “Yes.” Mr. Scott replied, “Ok,” and proceeded to wheel himself out of the residence, down his ramp, and toward the patrol vehicle.

A trainee accompanying Covietz took Mr. Scott’s manual wheelchair back inside the residence. To facilitate his entry into the rear of the patrol car, Mr. Scott—a right-leg amputee—had to physically remove his prosthetic leg. While seated in the back of the vehicle, Mr. Scott’s daughter approached and took a photograph of him; in a display of continued defiance and a clear indication of his non-suicidal state of mind, Mr. Scott was smiling and “flipping the bird” for the photo.

Notably, Mr. Scott was not handcuffed during the initial arrest or the transport from his home. He remained entirely unrestrained in the back of the patrol vehicle throughout the duration of the transport, until finally arriving at the PCSO processing center’s sally port. This lack of restraint—following a dispatch that characterized him as armed and dangerous—serves as further objective evidence of his actual compliance and the deputies’ implicit recognition that he posed no physical threat.

Observations from the Patrol Vehicle and Transfer of Custody

While seated in the back of Master Deputy Covietz’s patrol vehicle, Mr. Scott overheard a conversation between Covietz and his trainee. As the trainee was writing the initial arrest report, Master Deputy Covietz referred to Deputy Wade as a “loose cannon.” While the broader context of this remark remains unknown to Mr. Scott, the statement was made by a superior officer in the immediate wake of Wade’s handling of the threshold encounter.

In an objective assessment of the encounter, Mr. Scott notes that the therapist’s specific embellishments—reporting an armed subject who had “punched” an elderly woman and was threatening to “blow his brains off”—likely dictated Deputy Wade’s initial high-stress state of mind. However, Wade’s subsequent failure to perform a real-time assessment of the actual conditions at the scene was a critical error. Despite being “pre-primed” by dispatch, Wade encountered a man in a manual wheelchair who was proactively compliant and had his hands visible. Wade’s decision to maintain a “deadly force” posture rather than adapting to the non-threatening reality of the scene remains a primary point of contention.

During this time, Sergeant Lynch arrived on the scene in a pickup truck patrol vehicle. Covietz, the trainee, and Sgt. Lynch stepped out to confer and called Ms. Anderson over to the vehicle. Shortly thereafter, Deputy Goodman—a night shift deputy—arrived. Due to an impending shift change, custody of Mr. Scott was transferred to Deputy Goodman. Mr. Scott was moved into Goodman’s patrol vehicle for transport to the jail processing center.

Throughout the entire duration of the transport, Mr. Scott remained entirely unrestrained. It was only upon arriving at the processing center’s sally port that Deputy Goodman retrieved a wheelchair and placed handcuffs on Mr. Scott (cuffed in the front) before escorting him into the building for booking.

Processing, 360-Scanning, and the Compression Sock Dispute

Upon entry into the processing area, Mr. Scott was brought into a room containing approximately 8 to 10 workstations. A detention deputy handled the initial processing, which included taking Mr. Scott’s fingerprints. Following this, Mr. Scott was required to undergo a full-body scan on a platform where a machine performed a 360-degree scan of his person. Once the scan was completed, he returned to his wheelchair.

Following the scan, two nurses entered the room specifically to evaluate Mr. Scott’s compression sock. As an amputee, Mr. Scott requires the sock on his left leg to manage significant and painful swelling. The nurses informed him that because the sock was black, it would not be permitted under the facility’s “white socks only” policy. No further medical assessment was performed at that time; the nurses’ presence was strictly limited to the garment dispute.

Strip Search and Transition to Inmate Clothing

The process moved to a strip search. It was during this search—while being required to change into orange inmate scrubs—that the black compression sock was officially confiscated.

Mr. Scott reiterated that the sock was a medically necessary device to prevent painful swelling, but the staff maintained the prohibition based on the garment’s color. He was not provided with a medically equivalent white compression sock as a replacement. Notably, while the compression sock was seized, Mr. Scott’s right-leg prosthetic was not removed at this time; it remained with him as he transitioned into the inmate attire.

Service of the Ex Parte Risk Protection Order (RPO)

An Attack on the Second Amendment

While Mr. Scott was sitting in the waiting area under the observation of the elevated platform, he was approached by two female deputies—one described as a blonde with a “tom-boyish” appearance and the other a “regular” woman.

The deputies identified Mr. Scott and stated they had a Risk Protection Order for him. When Mr. Scott asked for a clarification of what the document was, the deputy responded dismissively: “You’ll have to read it. Sign here.”

Initially, Mr. Scott refused, stating, “I don’t want it,” as he had no understanding of the document’s purpose or legal weight. The deputy informed him that his refusal to sign was irrelevant to the order’s execution, stating: “This is happening whether you sign or not. If you don’t sign it, it will just be placed in your property.”

Deciding that he needed to know exactly what was being forced upon him, Mr. Scott signed for the paperwork so he could read it. He immediately noticed that the document was an Ex Parte Risk Protection Order. It functioned like an Injunction for Protection, placing immediate restrictions on his ability to possess or purchase weapons and ammunition.

Crucially, it had already been ordered and signed by a judge before Mr. Scott was even aware of its existence, representing a direct and unilateral move by the state to strip him of his Second Amendment rights without a prior hearing. This was the first formal indication that the agency was utilizing the manufactured “emergency” narrative to circumvent constitutional protections.

The 2:00 AM Transport and the Baker Act Revelation

Mr. Scott remained in the waiting area until approximately 2:00 AM. At that time, the deputy who had been stationed on the observation platform approached him and wheeled him toward the sally port for transport.

Based on the geography—specifically the vehicle turning off Highway 17 in Bartow—Mr. Scott assumed he was being transferred to Central County Jail. However, the vehicle instead pulled into the parking lot for the Peace River Center’s Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU). Mr. Scott was intimately familiar with this facility, having worked there as a Psych Tech at the age of 18.

A nurse and a Psych Tech met the patrol vehicle. When the door was opened, Mr. Scott asked the deputy, “Why are we at CSU?”

The deputy replied: “Because you were Baker Acted.”

This revelation was met with internal shock. Throughout the entire ordeal—from the initial encounter at his front door through hours of criminal processing—Mr. Scott had remained calm and compliant. He had made no statements and engaged in no behaviors that met the criteria for an involuntary mental health commitment. He was now being handed over to a mental health facility as a “patient” while still wearing orange jail scrubs.