Attorney for family of man fatally shot by deputy questions tactics of Orange County Sheriff's Office

ORLANDO, Fla. - The attorney representing the family of a man fatally shot by an Orange County sheriff's deputy outside The Florida Mall earlier this month is raising questions about the circumstances that led to the deadly incident.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office says Deputy James Montiel was undercover on August 7 when deputies were looking to serve an arrest warrant on Vanshawn Sands. They say Sands was connected to a Pine Hills shooting in July.

According to an arrest affidavit, Sands fired his gun in self-defense. A convicted criminal, who is not allowed to carry a gun, Sands originally told deputies the gun was not his but later recanted that statement. 
 
One month later, undercover deputies arrested Sands at the Florida Mall. Salaythis Melvin was with Sands at the time of the arrest and took off. According to the Sherrif's Office, Deputy Montiel saw Melvin grab his waistband and he felt threatened before he shot Melvin in the back and killed him. Body camera video has not clearly shown what happened, but you can see Melvin running away before falling to the ground. 

The attorney for Melvin's family, Carlus Haynes, is questioning the Sheriff's Office tactics asking why they were undercover and why they were monitoring Sands for a month before making the arrest. 

"They caused a hectic and chaotic scene where you have law enforcement officers in unmarked vehicles in plain clothes not readily identifiable jumping out trying to apprehend a guy who was shot at a month prior," said Haynes. 

Deputies were there to arrest Sands and not Melvin. Haynes believes Melvin ran because he was scared and confused. 

"Had they used uniform marked vehicles, to apprehend Mr. Sands that at least Mr. Melvin would be here. Because Mr. Melvin would have no reason to run from officers because they would have no reason to have contact with him," Haynes said. 

Retired police officer and professor at Florida Gulf University, David Thomas, says there is a strategy behind arrest warrants being served by undercover law enforcement. He suspects they could have been following him to get information on him. 

"They were actually following their wanted person to see what other contacts he made so they can gather other intelligence information in order to make more arrests, or catch him in other criminal activity so that was the purpose of following him," Thomas said. 

The Sheriff's Office did not want to comment on this story while the case is being investigated.