Off-Duty Fla. Paramedic Responds to Shooting of Trooper

The Palm Beach Post, Fla.

DeWayne Watson's been a firefighter-paramedic for 22 years, 20 of them in Riviera Beach. He's seen a lot of tragedy.

But until Wednesday, he never looked into the eyes of a murdered law enforcement officer.

"I saw that he was... obviously the wounds were fatal," Watson, the public information officer for his department, said Thursday morning. "By the time I was able to put hands on him, he'd already expired."

Watson, on his way home from Riviera Beach to Port St. Lucie, had happened upon the shooting death of Florida Highway Patrol trooper Joseph Bullock near a rest stop on Interstate 95 near Palm City. And the killing of the man believed to have shot Bullock, who is believed to be the first law enforcement officer ever slain in the line of duty in Martin County.

Things got even stranger when he looked into the eyes of the man authorities say killed the gunman. And realized he was a man who works in Watson's building.

"We briefly looked at each other. Glad to see each other," Watson said.

The man was a Riviera Beach police officer.

Watson said he had worked an overnight shift and usually gets off around 8 a.m. But he'd stuck around to chat with some colleagues and finish up some paperwork. Otherwise he'd been long past the spot by the time the shooting started around 10:15 a.m. on I-95 near Palm City.

Instead, he was in the middle of it.

Watson said he was driving by when "I saw something that just didn't look right, People were jumping up and down. The scene was kind of chaotic. It was just different from your normal car that maybe was out of service."

Then he saw Bullock on the pavement next to his cruiser.

"I didn't know if he was having a medical emergency," Watson said.

He found the first break in the median and turned around.

Like a mechanic who keeps a wrench in the back seat of the family SUV, Watson keeps medical equipment in his personal vehicle. He stopped in the median, waited for a break, and raced across the northbound lanes to the shoulder, where several other cars had stopped and people had gotten out.

"I was 10 to 20 yards away when gunfire erupted," he said. "I can't say who was shooting who. I just saw people ducking behind cars."

Watson said he directed some of the bystanders to take cover. That's when he saw the man who would turn out to be his colleague get behind a car.

The officer was off the clock and in plain clothes and at first Watson didn't recognize him.

Once the gunfire stopped, Watson ran to Bullock. His first thought was to drag him behind his cruiser in case the shooting started again. But it didn't. And it was too late for Bullock.

Watson would not say where Bullock had been shot.

He said paramedics came up behind him not three minutes later.

He said he did not speak to the Riviera Beach policeman. He said he did not know where the officer lives and could not say if he was coming to or from work.

He said he's not a close friend of the man but said "he's a really good officer. He's been there for a long time. He's done a lot of good things in the agency."

Watson declined to name the police officer. Riviera Beach police have left that to the Highway Patrol, which so far has not named either the officer or the dead gunman.

Riviera Beach police did say Thursday morning the officer is on administrative leave, standard in officer-involved shootings.

Watson stayed around to be interviewed before heading home, where he finally had a moment to process what he'd experienced.

"Working where I work, I see a lot of traumatic things. That kind of helped," he said. "But that's the first time I saw a law enforcement officer that was killed."