Sarasota Police Department obtains variety of information about suspect’s activities before and after incident before forwarding case to State Attorney’s Office
A 35-year-old Bradenton resident has been arrested in connection with a fatal hit-and-run crash that occurred in Sarasota on Feb. 29, the Sarasota Police Department announced this week.
Devan Shaun Carroll was taken into custody about 6 a.m. on Aug. 28, the Police Department reported. Manatee County Sheriff’s deputies arrested him at his residence, a news release says.
The formal charge filed against him is High and Run Crash involving Death, his Probable Cause Affidavit says.
Carroll was to be transferred to the Sarasota County Jail, the Police Department noted in its release. As of 2:30 p.m. on Aug. 29, The Sarasota News Leaderfound no record of his being booked into the jail.
The hit-and-run incident occurred just before 11 p.m. on Feb. 29 at the intersection of Cocoanut Avenue and Second Street, in downtown Sarasota, the affidavit says. The victim, 81-year-old Pamela Jean Etsinger of Sarasota, had been celebrating her birthday at the Sarasota Opera when she was struck by a silver Ford F-150 Platinum truck while she was crossing the street “in a clearly marked crosswalk,” the Police Department news release says.
A security camera located at 129 N. Pineapple Ave. captured footage of the incident, the affidavit notes. Etsinger first crossed Second Street, headed northbound, using a marked crosswalk, the affidavit continues, before she proceeded to cross Cocoanut Avenue, heading west, also within a marked crosswalk. However, the affidavit points out, the security camera footage showed that the pedestrian signal indicated that she should not have started that second crossing.
As Etsinger began to cross Cocoanut, the affidavit continues, the Ford truck was stopped at North Pineapple Avenue, facing northwest. When the traffic light turned green, it adds, the truck “began to turn slightly right” to travel north on Cocoanut. “In the video,” the affidavit points out, “it is evident that the driver applied the brakes and swerved left, striking the curb. Simultaneously, the driver’s side of the vehicle moved in an upward motion (both front and rear of the vehicle) as it struck Etsinger,” the affidavit adds.
Etsinger laid motionless in the street until police officers and EMS personnel arrived on the scene, it says.
A witness was able to provide information about the truck to officers, the affidavit notes. He reported that the conditions was dark, with only streetlamps providing illumination, the affidavit continues. He was walking to his vehicle, the witness said, when “he heard a loud ‘bang,’ ” after which he saw a four-door pickup “ ‘speeding off, awfully fast past him,’ ” and then turning left onto Fruitville Road, the affidavit adds.
An officer was able to obtain the license plate information for the truck by reviewing images from a license plate camera in the area, the affidavit points out.
On March 1, the affidavit continues, Police officers learned from the Medical Examiner’s Office that Etsinger had died from her injuries. The same day, the affidavit adds, a Manatee County Sheriff’s deputy stopped the truck, finding that it was being driven by the insured owner, Devan Shaun Carroll. “The vehicle had damage consistent with a hit and run,” the affidavit points out.
The Sarasota Police officer who wrote the affidavit’s narrative was able to review body camera footage of the traffic stop, the affidavit says.
After the Manatee deputy asked the driver to step out of the vehicle, the affidavit continues, Carroll complied.
The deputy stayed with Carroll until a Sarasota Police Department detective arrived on the scene, the affidavit adds. Both the truck and Carroll’s cell phone were seized by the detective.
Carroll had invoked his right to remain silent and to request an attorney, the affidavit notes.
Through execution of search warrants and service of subpoenas, as well as interviews, Police Department personnel were able to determine that Carroll and a friend had met for drinks at one bar before Carroll ended up by himself at a different bar later the night of Feb. 29, the affidavit explains.
Among other information that the Police Department obtained, as noted in the affidavit, an officer learned that at 4:59 a.m. on March 1, Carroll began to google three “different news sources for breaking news.”
Further, the friend who had met Carroll at Memories Lounge in Sarasota for drinks the night of the incident told an officer that Carroll later informed him that police personnel were saying that Carroll had hit someone, but Carroll denied having done so, adding, “At least I don’t remember,” the affidavit says.
It took months of investigators working to obtain a variety of evidence before the Police Department forwarded details of the case to the State Attorney’s Office for the 12th Judicial Circuit, for consideration of charges, the affidavit notes.