WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Detectives arrested a Polk Correctional Institution officer on Tuesday for tampering with evidence after a shooting in Winter Haven.
According to a statement from the Polk County Sheriff's Office, 38-year-old Stacy Newton confessed to taking a spent bullet casing away from the scene of the incident near Bradbury Road.
The statement said Newton's friend, 31-year-old Derick Wilkerson, got into an angry confrontation with the person whom both he and Newton knew. Wilkerson then pointed a gun at the victim, threatened to kill him, then followed the victim to his car and fired a shot in the air above his head, the sheriff's office said.
After the shooting, Newton reportedly told Wilkerson to leave and pocketed the bullet casing before leaving the area herself.
The statement also said Wilkerson and Newton gave full confessions after witness testimony and security footage supported the victim's story. No one was hurt in the shooting.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd stressed the importance of holding public servants to high standards of accountability: "A corrections officer should know better than to associate with someone with such a violent history; it will eventually get you into trouble, and in this case it did," Judd said.
Wilkerson's "violent history" reportedly includes past arrests for battery by strangulation, battery, dating violence, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and habitual offender status.
He now faces new charges of: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, driving while license suspended/revoked, improper exhibit of a firearm, discharging a Firearm in public and culpable negligence.
