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Long before a Tampa cop was shot, Walter Jeziorski's relatives feared him

 
A picture from Facebook shows Walter Richard Jeziorski III posing with a handgun. The image appeared about two years before Jeziorski, 35, was accused of trying to kill two Tampa police officers who attempted to arrest him on a warrant. Court and police records show Jeziorski's family and others repeatedly expressed fear that he was unstable and might be a danger to others. [Facebook]
A picture from Facebook shows Walter Richard Jeziorski III posing with a handgun. The image appeared about two years before Jeziorski, 35, was accused of trying to kill two Tampa police officers who attempted to arrest him on a warrant. Court and police records show Jeziorski's family and others repeatedly expressed fear that he was unstable and might be a danger to others. [Facebook]
Published April 8, 2018

['I will kill all of you' — Timeline at conclusion of this article]

TAMPA — The 2016 arrest of Walter Richard Jeziorski III came after witnesses said he punched a man while holding him at gunpoint in the northwest Tampa apartment complex where they all lived.

That day, Jeziorski signed a form to let police take weapons that were in his apartment: a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol, a 7.62 x 39mm rifle and more than 500 rounds of ammunition.

His father arrived and spoke with the officers.

"He is concerned about his son having these weapons," one wrote in a report. "He further stated that his son does have mental problems and has had violent tendencies."

But later, after the battery charge was dropped, Jeziorski's father asked for the guns back and got them.

Three weeks ago, on March 19, police seized them again.

This time, they say, Jeziorski used the pistol to try to kill a Tampa police officer.

• • •

The story of Walter Richard Jeziorski III is a familiar one. It is a tale of missed warning signs — untreated mental illness, a violent past, a gun fixation.

The Tampa Bay Times reviewed written records and audio recordings of a dozen court hearings involving Jeziorski, along with 28 Tampa police and Hillsborough sheriff's reports that document more than a decade of contacts with law enforcement.

Every member of the 35-year-old's immediate family had sought court-ordered protection from him. They spoke of violent outbursts, death threats and their fear that he would hurt them.

Even the family's rabbi got an injunction, saying he, too, had become the target of Jeziorski's rage.

"I am concerned that he may be the type of psychopath that would carry out a mass shooting or something like that," Michael Stepakoff said in court.

A standard provision of the 10 injunctions Jeziorski had against him was that he had to surrender his guns to the Sheriff's Office. Some required that he undergo a psychological examination.

Nevertheless, he was repeatedly found with weapons. His relatives declined to publicly discuss how he got the two guns back after they were taken in 2016.

"I've been praying for a long time that he would never kill anybody," his mother, Donna Jeziorski, said recently, speaking on behalf of the family.

Amid the groundswell of calls for stricter gun laws and better mental health care that followed the February massacre in Parkland, the Jeziorski case raises questions about the enforcement and effectiveness of regulations.

State lawmakers have tried to remedy the problem with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. The law, which Gov. Rick Scott signed March 9, creates "risk protection orders."

The orders allow law enforcement officers to petition courts to take guns away from people at risk of violence. The law also dictates a course of action for when guns are owned by a third party or when authorities want to conduct a search for weapons.

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Hillsborough courts have not yet issued risk protection orders. But St. Petersburg police have already put the new law to use, petitioning Pinellas courts recently to take firearms away from two men.

Jeziorski's family members are skeptical that enhanced regulations will do much good.

"A piece of paper doesn't stop someone who's breaking the law from breaking the law," said his sister, Shelley Edwards.

• • •

Jeziorski grew up in Tampa, the only son of Donna and Walter Jeziorski Jr. He has two older sisters, Shelley and Emily Edwards, and one younger sister, Gabrielle Jeziorski.

The family called him "Richie."

His mother remembers a "good little boy" who loved animals and meeting new people.

In the first grade, teachers said he had a reading disability. Doctors noted restlessness and put him on Ritalin. He became quick to anger. In adolescence, he started using alcohol and drugs.

His mother saw worrisome signs. Compulsiveness. Hyperactivity. Paranoia. At least one doctor mentioned bipolar disorder. But the family was never sure if that was what Richie had.

At age 14, his parents enrolled him at what is now the Hope Children's Home. The Christian charity provides housing and schooling for children in need at its wooded campus in northwest Hillsborough. Jeziorski earned a high school diploma there. His family said his behavior improved for a time.

He took up boxing, and grew brawny and imposing, standing close to six feet, and weighing 200 pounds. He wore bandanas over his brown hair, which he kept alternately long or in a buzz cut.

He had an interest the military. He owned a BB gun as a child and later became fascinated with real guns, his mother said.

One of his first adult arrests came at age 20, in 2002. A Hillsborough sheriff's report states he became angry when he couldn't find his gun, and he attacked his father.

The family sent him to France with hopes that he could join the French Foreign Legion. But his domestic violence history held him back, they said. He went to Israel to try to join the Israeli Defense Forces. But he got in a fight and was sent home, his family said. He tried to join the U.S. military, but his efforts were rebuffed for the same reasons.

He worked as a fitness trainer. His family also said he worked construction at MacDill Air Force Base. But he had a hard time staying employed and began living on federal disability payments, awarded because of his history of mental problems.

Starting in 2005, family members repeatedly sought injunctions for protection. The parents were terrified of their son. The sisters were terrified of their brother.

They spoke of a man who was smart, but also manipulative, controlling and short-tempered. They told of spontaneous physical attacks. They were afraid to say no to him sometimes.

The father, now 74, reported the son had battered him.

"His son told him he was going to hit him so hard as to crush his eye socket," a Tampa police officer wrote in 2007. "He said his son broke his ribs in September of this year but he did not report it for fear his son would get out and hurt him worse."

In a court hearing, the father said Jeziorski had once choked him unconscious. He awoke with his son hugging him and crying.

While they were afraid, the family still yearned for a normal relationship. His father was especially reluctant to sever contact.

"He's my only son," Walter Jeziorski Jr. told a judge in 2010. "I know he does what he does to me, but I would love to be able to talk to him on the phone once in a while."

Amid the family strain, the son lived in a tent in the woods. His arrests continued. Somehow, he never landed any felony convictions, nor did he ever do more than a year in jail.

In 2014, deputies were called to a disturbance at his family's home. When they arrived, Jeziorski got on a bicycle and tried to leave, according to a sheriff's report. The deputies had to wrestle him into handcuffs, then leg restraints, then, finally, a spit mask. His words became a stream of profanity and epithets.

"I'm going to kill all of your families," he said, according to the report. "I'm going to kill all of you f------ white shirts next time I see any of you alone."

• • •

Jeziorski maintained at least three Facebook pages under fake names. In one, he was "Gearge Ecklund." His posts are a mishmash of political and religious memes, images of Bible passages, links to conspiracy websites, shirtless and bug-eyed selfies.

He shows off swords, machetes, knives and guns.

In a 2015 video, he demonstrates how to unload and reload a pistol. A caption reads: "I'm not scared I'm happy .. But … We have to burn a lot of people."

Another video is a continuous shot of Jeziorski aiming a long rifle at the camera, accompanied by rapper Eminem's song The Way I Am.

Emily Edwards was on a trip to Florida's east coast March 10, 2015, when she saw two photos her brother posted to Facebook, including one that depicted a rifle on her family's living room couch.

She had an active injunction against him.

Her brother, who lived elsewhere, wasn't supposed to be within 500 feet of the family's house.

Deputies interviewed their father. He said he had invited his son over, knowing his daughter would be gone, and showed him how to take the gun apart. No charges were filed.

It was the following January that police seized the Smith & Wesson pistol and the rifle.

Exactly how the weapons returned to him is unclear.

What is clear: a few weeks after the 2016 arrest, Jeziorski's father asked for them back. He told police the guns belonged to him.

On April 28, 2016, Walter Jeziorski Jr. submitted paperwork proving he owned the pistol and it was returned, according to a police report. Police kept the rifle, but a May 20 report supplement noted that it, too, was returned to its owner.

The family declined to comment on how Jeziorski got the guns, but they said they were not given to him willingly.

Tampa police Chief Brian Dugan said recently the agency thinks he may have stolen at least one of the weapons.

"I know my husband felt threatened," Donna Jeziorski said.

• • •

Michael Stepakoff had only met Jeziorski once, years ago. But he was well acquainted with the family, who attended the Messianic Jewish rabbi's synagogue in Pinellas County.

In early 2016, Stepakoff accepted a Facebook friend request from Jeziorski, then using the name "Eli Alson." Stepakoff later un-friended him. In July, Jeziorski sent him a message.

"Your not a rabbi ..." he wrote. "you move to Israel or you do what i say or you get killed."

In a profane missive, he told the rabbi he was a "dead man."

Stepakoff filed a petition for an injunction, including images of Jeziorski with guns. Judge Frances Perrone granted it.

Like the other protection orders, it mandated that Jeziorski surrender any firearms he had to the Sheriff's Office. A deputy brought the document to his apartment on Aug. 23, 2016.

"No firearms," the deputy wrote in a record of the visit.

A little more than a month later, on Sept. 26, a photo appeared on the Gearge Ecklund page showing a Glock handgun resting in someone's lap.

In the year that followed, several other photos appeared, depicting another handgun with a long magazine, a folding knife, a gas mask, and other items.

On Sept. 11, immediately after Hurricane Irma swept the state, Jeziorski crashed his moped into a fallen tree, then limped away bleeding. When officers arrested him on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, they found a Glock handgun.

It belonged to his father, police learned. It was marked for destruction. But on March 15 this year, the elder Jeziorski asked for it back, a report stated.

In the interim, his son was taken into protective custody after he threatened suicide.

Then, in January, he sent his father a text message with a picture of an AK-47 and threatened to kill him, according to an arrest affidavit. A month later, another affidavit states, Jeziorski called his father, asked for money and again threatened to kill him when he refused.

The last two incidents spurred a March 12 arrest warrant.

• • •

Richard Lehr and Leigh Smith were both veteran lawmen.

Lehr was an officer in Gulfport for a decade before joining Tampa police in 2008. His supervisors praised his investigative skills and dedication to the job.

Smith, a native of England, worked as a Temple Terrace police detective before joining TPD in 2014.

The men were assigned to the Street Anti-Crime Unit.

They pulled up at Jeziorski's North Hubert Avenue apartment at 2:22 a.m. He answered when they knocked, but when they asked him to step outside, he tried to shut the door. The officers pushed it open. On the other side, Jeziorski raised the Smith & Wesson.

He pulled the trigger seven times, police said.

A bullet shattered the police radio affixed to Lehr's chest. Another sliced through his right arm, then punctured his torso.

In the hours ahead, Lehr would be treated for his wounds, and he and Smith would make it home to their wives. But it wasn't over. The officers stumbled back and returned fire.

Jeziorski grabbed a phone and called his mother.

"Mom," he said. "I just shot a cop,"

Donna Jeziorski, 67, listened. It was as if all her family's struggles had led her to this moment of knowing how to respond.

Before she got in the car and drove toward the police helicopter and the flashing emergency lights, she slowed down, just long enough to stop the bullets not yet spent.

She told him to surrender.

"Richie," she said. "Start yelling that you are coming out with your hands up."

She listened as her son obeyed.

Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.