The homeless man in Saturday’s deadly shootout claimed in a 911 call that things were going to get “uncomfortable” if Richmond County deputies officers didn’t back up.
Duterval Sejour, 36, called 911 about an hour before he reportedly shot Deputy Kenneth Mercer in the neck in an exchange of gunfire on Ellis Street in Augusta that left Sejour dead.
The man claimed that he had been given permission to be on the property and was being confronted about it.
LISTEN TO 911 CALL HERE:
“Remember I called you last time about how I found a bed, and I am using this to live in. Remember that?” Sejour told the dispatcher.
“I didn’t speak to you sir,” she says.
“I called you last night. And you said it was OK. It was fine,” Sejour said.
“I did not speak to you. But how can I help you today?”
“I have a gentleman, I am on some property that nobody owns, according to my knowledge, nobody own it. And he is literally out here trying to tell me, ‘Oh, I don’t belong on the property.’ That is not his property. It’s nobody’s property,” Sejour says.
The homeless man, who had been arrested twice in April for trespassing in the same location, claimed the gentleman had pulled a gun on him and called the police.
“He is mad. He can’t open the gate. He just literally pulled out a gun on me. Him and his people just pulled out a gun on me,” Sejour said.
“Sir, I need you to tell me what the address is,” the 911 dispatcher says.
“No, there are officers out here. How you don’t know? How you haven’t heard about it?”
The dispatcher tells him to talk to the officers who are at his location on Ellis Street.
“Call the FBI for me, OK? Or I will call the FBI next, OK?” he asks. “Are we OK with that?”
She asks for his name, and then he demands she call the FBI.
“Ma’am, I will call the FBI if you don’t back up your officers. I am capable. I will call the FBI and this will be a bad uncomfortable situation. Five, four.. I am going to call the FBI.”
“Talk to the officers who are out there to assist you,” the dispatcher says.
“To assist me? OK, thank you.”
According to WGAC’s Austin Rhodes, the suspect later contacted the FBI and talked with someone from the agency’s Aiken office before he was ultimately shot and killed by officers following an exchange of gunfire.
Deputy Mercer continued to recover Tuesday at Augusta University’s Medical Center. (GOFUNDME: https://gofund.me/12222387)
The coroner’s office has not been able to locate family for the homeless man, saying they had tried in New Jersey and Florida without success.
The homeless man had set up a camp behind the closed business on Ellis Street. Police records show he had been arrested twice for criminal trespassing and for looking into cars around that area.
Meanwhile, there are questions about why the sheriff’s SWAT Team was not dispatched to the scene. Radio traffic obtained by The Augusta Press shows an officer asking dispatch if the SWAT team had been notified after the officer was shot.
“Negative,” the dispatcher says.
According to the sheriff’s website, the SWAT Team’s mission is to “handle high-risk operations in a manner that reduces the chance of violence, injury or death.” SWAT handles unusual operational activities including hostage incidents, barricaded suspects, armed barricaded suspects, service of high risk warrants, civil disturbances, suicidal subjects, mental subjects, man-hunt operations, sniper attacks, VIP protection and any other high-risk tactical incident.
The sheriff’s office declined to comment on the lack of SWAT team at the scene, saying “no further information will be provided due to the active investigation.”
The GBI, which is investigating the officer-involved shooting, said that deputies had responded to an area near 12th and Ellis Streets in Augusta about a man with a gun.
“Deputies learned that the man had been pointing the gun at people in the area earlier that day,” a GBI press release says. “Deputies found the man in an enclosed area of a business that bordered Ellis Street. Deputies confirmed that the man had a gun. While speaking with him in an attempt to get him to surrender, there was an exchange of gunfire between the deputies and the man.”
This story was written in collaboration with WGAC’s Austin Rhodes.
