, Fla. — A Lake County family may never get answers about what happened in the moments before 38-year-old Timotheus Reed was shot and killed by a deputy.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office says they were called to Montclair Road in Leesburg Sunday morning after someone reported a stabbing.
The sheriff’s office says the responding deputy didn’t activate this body camera video until after the shooting of Timotheus Reed.
On Thursday, Channel 9 obtained the Lake County Sheriff’s Office’s policies on patrol operations and mobile recording devices.
The policy states “deputies are required to activate their body-worn cameras when arriving at a call or self-initiating law-enforcement-related encounters and activities.”
According to policy, emergency lights should be activated, “While responding to an actual or suspected emergency, or during a pursuit situation.”
According to a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, activating blue emergency lights automatically activates a deputy’s body worn camera.
But when a deputy responded to Montclair Road Sunday, those blue lights were not activated, nor did the deputy manually activate his body camera video.
A sheriff’s office spokesperson says that deputy was actively patrolling near Montclair Road “in the immediate area, a very short distance away” when the call came in.
“He simply pulled up to the scene and was quickly pointed in the direction where Mr. Reed had gone,” said a Lake County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson.
Law Enforcement expert and former Boca Raton Police Chief, Andrew Scott explained all body camera can be manually activated in seconds, with some agencies opting for technology upgrades including connecting the camera to siren and lights in patrol cars.
“It’s very simple to activate,” said Scott, “It depends on the product, but you press once or twice on the camera.”
Scott explained that the Lake County Sheriff’s Office’s internal affairs unit will be examining their policies to see if the responding deputy violated any rules. He also said investigators will likely look to determine if this instance was an oversight or if there is a history of the deputy not activating body camera video on “hot calls.”
“In this particular instance the officers got to explain, why he or she did not turn on their body-worn camera,” said Scott.
On Thursday, Channel 9 also dug into the Lake County Sherriff’s Office’s history with body worn camera technology.
Records reviewed by Channel 9 show the department previously utilized sensors that would in theory activate body worn camera every time a gun was pulled from a deputy’s holster.
However, that technology proved to be problematic and was eventually phased out in 2024.
In theory, that technology may have captured the shooting of Timotheus Reed but the records show there were “continual issues” with the technology.
Specifically, the sheriff’s office says “The sensors were extremely unreliable and were causing far too many issues to keep repairing and re-purchasing.”
According to a spokesperson with the Sheriff’s Office, from Feb of 2021 until January 2026, there were 17,950 erroneous BWC and Fleet video activations by Signal Sidearm Sensors.
From August 2022 until June 2024 the office had to send back nearly half of their signal sidearm sensors to the manufacturer, Axon, for replacements.
The Lake County Sheriff’s office discontinued use of the technology in the fall of 2024 because of ongoing malfunctions.
Similarly, the Coconut Creek Police Department also discontinued using their sensors because they never fit their holsters properly, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
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