Bodycam footage showing a delayed police response to a hostage situation at a Florida gas station last summer has prompted an internal investigation into how the officers handled the incident.
On June 1, 2024, police officers were called to a RaceTrac gas station in Sanford, Florida, where a man held a gas station employee at knifepoint in one of the bathrooms. But even though the woman was heard screaming for help, it took officers minutes after their arrival to finally enter the bathroom and subdue her captor.
WESH obtained bodycam video showing the moments when police arrived at the scene.
“You need to get in there quick! He done slit her damn neck,” a bystander is heard saying to one of the responding officers.
As soon as one officer stepped inside, a gas station clerk brought him up to speed about what’s happening.
“Who else is inside?” an officer asks the clerk.
“Me and my assistant manager and the guy in the men’s room,” the clerk responds.
“Where is your assistant manager?” the officer asks.
“She’s in the bathroom,” the clerk said.
A woman inside the bathroom is also heard crying out for help and pleading with her captor to let her go.
“Sir, please! Please let me go,” the woman pleaded.
The officer doesn’t approach the bathroom, but waits for his partner to come inside the station to discuss how they should respond.
“It’s in that door to the left, but the hallways are narrow, bro. It’s a setup,” the first officer says.
“What do you want to do? Want to wait?” the second officer asks.
“I say we wait for more units,” the first officer responds.
Meanwhile, the victim is still heard pleading to be released.
Nearly a minute passes before the officers decide to call out to the suspect and make their presence known.
“Sir, if you, can you come out? With your hands up,” one officer says.
“Sanford police!” the second officer yells.
“Please help me somebody!” the victim calls back.
Even though the woman requested immediate help, the officers stood outside the bathroom and waited more than three minutes for backup to arrive.
“Alright, she’s screaming? Go in. What are we waiting for?” one of the newly arrived officers says.
Bodycam footage shows another officer entering the bathroom with a gun raised and commanding the suspect, who police identified as 63-year-old Randal Lee Lawton, to drop the knife. Lawton is seen standing above the woman crouching in a corner of the bathroom.
Lawton was arrested and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, resisting an officer, and kidnapping, according to FOX35.
Authorities learned that he had visited the station to purchase cigarettes and coffee. He left and returned a short time later and went to the bathroom. When he came out, he told the female clerk there was no toilet paper, and when she went inside the bathroom, he locked both of them inside.
Lawton later told detectives that he encountered a “demon” he identified as “Eve,” who had been attacking him for years over his use of cigarettes.
“Randal stated that due to the demon bothering him, he believed that it needed to be punished,” the arrest report stated, according to WKMG. “Randal advised that he did not wish to kill the demon but that it needed to be harmed.”
The victim told police that Lawton put his hand over her mouth, forced her to the ground, and when she tried to get away, he cut her throat. She cut her hand trying to fight back and grab the knife.
Before she was transported to a local hospital, police evaluated her at the scene and saw she had multiple cuts on her hand, two deep cuts below her chin, and was missing a tooth. She told officers how Lawton assaulted her.
“He ripped my teeth out. He stuck his hand in my mouth,” she said.
In the aftermath of the incident, bodycam video shows police discussing their responses to the incident. One of the officers who decided to wait for backup corrected the officer who stormed the bathroom about her approach, citing safety issues.
“What you did was fine, but don’t rush it. Take it slow,” the officer states. “He could’ve been waiting. We don’t know what kind of knife he had.”
But in a different conversation, another cop chastised the officers who waited for backup.
“Because y’all were standing inside, I thought everybody was out,” the officer says. “You go in. You don’t wait for a third person.”
Sanford Police Chief Cecil Smith stated that he didn’t see the bodycam footage until earlier this year after snippets of it went viral on social media. He stated that the video prompted “a need for a thorough review of the incident and the officer’s response.”
The first two officers who arrived at the scene have been removed from patrol duties and placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of their department’s internal investigation.
