Protesters march through the streets, demand answers into Corey Mobley’s fatal shooting

One protest wasn’t enough. Marchers took to the streets again to speak out against the Jan. 23 police-involved shooting of Corey Mobley.

With yellow picket signs held high and megaphones in hand, protesters marched to demonstrate their anger with what they say is a lack of answers coming from the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

While attendance at Saturday’s protest wasn’t as strong as the one held three days after Mobley’s death, it topped its predecessor in sheer intensity. After spending about 20 minutes chanting in front of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office administration building across the street from the DeSoto Square mall, protesters marched east toward the intersection of South Tamiami Trail and U.S. 301.

Sheriff’s deputies ensured their safety as the 20 protesters walked through the middle of the street. As they did so, drivers honked in support and people exited nearby buildings to see what was going on.

When protesters made it to the intersection, a deputy had to ask them three times to clear the road. They finally obliged when he left his car and ushered them to do so.

All the while, marchers chanted “no justice, no peace” and “saying sorry every time, being black is not a crime,” to express their frustration with the sheriff’s office.

“There’s 20 of us,” said Ruth Beltran of Answer Suncoast, a local activist group. “Look how powerful we are. Just a handful of us gave them hell. Imagine if we came out in the hundreds.”

Beltran was one of the leaders of the first protest against Mobley’s shooting. She demanded a civilian oversight agency that retains all power related to the hiring and firing of law enforcement officers, citing that the in-house review practices don’t result in changes.

Gregory Cruz is a Sarasota-based activist. He missed the first protest due to a conflict with his work schedule but said he had to make sure he spoke out against an “unbelievable” story.

“This case, in particular, is very weird. Not only did he reach for his waistband and go down while being attacked by a dog, but then he got back up and reached for his waistband as he was wounded and proclaimed again that he had a gun,” said Cruz. “It’s just common sense that the story doesn’t sit well with people for obvious reasons.”

Cruz said law enforcement officers need to be able to prove that they feared for their life. Right now, he said, it’s an excuse to justify their actions.

“It just seems like the scapegoat answer for any officer that wants to get away with murder.”

In a press conference the day after Mobley’s shooting, Sheriff Rick Wells said K-9 deputy Patrick Drymon, 37, fired his weapon four times after Mobley, 38, said “I have a gun for you (expletive),” multiple times. That account comes from deputies at the scene of the shooting and at least three witnesses, Wells said.

Deputies have not located that alleged weapon.

Drymon’s name was released Jan. 31, more than a week after the shooting. He has been with the sheriff’s office since April 2008 and has been placed on “light duty” until the sheriff’s office and State Attorney’s Office investigation is finished.

Beltran doesn’t buy the sheriff’s office’s account of what happened that night either. She said the story is aligned with a “nationwide racist stigma that black men have superpowers.”

“Somehow Corey, after having been shot twice by the killer cop, and all while being attacked by the killer’s K-9, had the superpowers to still stand up, reach for his waist and defy the killer cop before being shot twice more,” Beltran said.

One of the ways to shine a definitive light on these types of incidents is to utilize body and dash cameras for officers, Beltran said.

“We’re left with no other evidence other than the killer’s word. Let’s be accountable to the community and implement body cams and dash cameras,” she said. “With these changes, communities can significantly decrease the number of black and brown people killed by police fire.”

Before his fatal encounter with sheriff’s deputies, dispatchers received an anonymous 911 call about a man beating a woman at a gas station. Deputies responded to the scene of the assault at Marathon, 2927 Cortez Road at 9:20 p.m., but Mobley fled before they arrived, the caller said.

A deputy located Mobley within a few minutes but he did not stop when the deputy attempted to pull him ever. By 9:27 p.m., two other deputies spotted Mobley and gave chase to the 6300 block of Sixth Street West in Bradenton, according to Wells.

That’s when Mobley exited his white Chrysler 300 and took off running through backyards, hopping fences along the way. A K-9 named Boss tracked Mobley through the neighborhood and Drymon confronted him.

According to Wells, Mobley then allegedly told the deputy, “I have a gun for you (expletive).”

Mobley ignored numerous commands to show his hands, instead reaching into his waistband as he continued to say he was armed, according to the sheriff’s office. Drymon — then in fear for his own life, Wells said — fired two shots. Mobley fell to the ground but quickly got back up and again told the deputy he had a gun.

Drymon fired two more shots, and Mobley collapsed to the ground. Mobley was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where he died shortly after the shooting.

The investigation into the shooting continues.

Another protest will be held at 1 p.m. Feb. 17 at starting at Martin Luther King Avenue West and First Street West in Bradenton, Beltran announced. That protest is meant to be a preemptive strike against the Florida Department of Transportation’s initial plans to build an overpass over the black community in that area.

“We want to stop the project early, before the permits and everything. This is our best shot.”

This story was originally published February 10, 2018 at 8:21 PM with the headline "Protesters march through the streets, demand answers into Corey Mobley’s fatal shooting."