The Winter Park Police Department released body-worn camera video showing the chaotic moments leading up to the Feb. 19 killing of Daniel Knight, who was shot several times by police at his niece’s wedding reception.
The video and surveillance footage also released Wednesday appeared to confirm that, during a fracas, Knight struck two officers who responded to a 911 call from the Winter Park Events Center in which a woman reported he was intoxicated and attacking people.
Both officers were knocked to the ground during the fight, with one firing the shots that killed Knight from the ground, the footage showed.
But it also showed Knight’s family pleading with officers prior to the violence that would end in his killing and insisting they could handle their loved one, who they said was drunk but not dangerous and not armed.
The footage’s release on Wednesday comes more than a month after Knight was shot multiple times during Janisha Paul’s wedding reception at the new Winter Park Events Center. In the 911 call, a woman said Knight was drunk and “trying to beat people up,” which his family denied.
Police arrived near the end of the three-minute call.
The footage shows officers arriving at the Winter Park Events Center around 9:40 p.m. to find Knight, who was agitated and cursing, standing outside with two women who identified themselves as his sisters and told police repeatedly that he was not a threat.
“He’s OK. He’s our brother,” they told officers repeatedly. “It’s his first wedding.”
As officers gave commands to “back up” Knight told the officers to “shut up,” the footage shows.
“He’s not going to hurt anybody,” one of the women pleaded, referring to Knight. “He doesn’t have any weapons.”
An officer, after repeatedly telling her to “move out of the way,” tried to pull one of the women away from Knight — at which point she pleaded for the officer to stop and Knight tried to pull her back.
“Don’t you snatch my [expletive] sister,” he said.
The footage shows the situation became more chaotic after that, with more wedding attendees exiting the venue and trying to get between Knight and the officers. As that played out, less than two minutes after officers arrived, Knight could be seen striking one of the officers, who fell.
The other officer also fell to the ground after police say Knight struck him, with his camera recording images of Paul fleeing in terror in her wedding dress just moments before the gunfire began.
Seven gunshots are audible in the footage.
After the gunfire, one officer could be heard saying Knight “knocked me out.” The other, who fired the shots, told a wedding guest, “He punched me in the back of my head, took my Taser. I’m on my back. My life was in jeopardy.”
Multiple guests confronted the officer who shot Knight, who was heard telling a male guest, “You got a problem with me? You want a problem, you’re going to find one.”
A woman, who identified herself in the footage as Knight’s sister, was seen praying on her knees near Knight’s body. “Please dear Lord, no. We were celebrating,” she said. “He didn’t have any weapons.”
A spokesperson for Morgan & Morgan, the law firm representing Knight’s family, said the firm was first made aware of the video’s release by reporters.
“The only thing the video establishes is that Daniel Knight did not deserve to die,” said a statement by attorneys Adrian Mendiondo and Farnita Saunders Hil. “His family continues to mourn his death and we will fight for justice on their behalf.
WPPD hasn’t released the names of the officers involved, citing Marsy’s Law, a recent amendment to Florida’s Constitution that shields victims of crimes from being publicly identified. Their faces were blurred in the footage released by the agency Wednesday.
The use of the law to shield officers who use deadly force has been decried by transparency advocates and a case concerning it is pending before the Florida Supreme Court.
Knight’s family has said they were unaware of any altercation happening at the reception prior to police arriving and that their contract with the venue required staff to notify them of any disturbances during the event.
Pastor Carl Soto, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Restoration Polk, told reporters after the killing that video taken just moments before police were called showed Knight dancing and celebrating with family. That video has not been released.
Scores of Knight’s loved ones showed up for his funeral in Lakeland, where he was described as a jokester and a family man who left behind a fiancée and four children.
creyes-rios@orlandosentinel.com; lgarza@orlandosentinel.com
