A Florida woman who was fatally shot Tuesday during a confrontation with sheriff’s deputies was a U.S. Army veteran who had been struggling with personal issues, according to reports.
Tracy Drowne, 42, had pointed a handgun at the deputies when they responded to her home near Avalon Park about a battery call, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
“There were issues that she was dealing with,” Drowne’s ex-husband, Salvador Perez, who lives in California along with their two daughters, told the newspaper. "She thought everyone was out to get her and she didn't trust anybody."
"She thought everyone was out to get her and she didn't trust anybody."
— Salvador Perez, ex-husband of Army veteran killed by deputiesDrowne died in a hospital a short time after the 4:30 p.m. incident.
A neighbor named Andrew Santisteban had contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, claiming Drowne hit him during a dispute involving his 16-year-old daughter, FOX 35 Orlando reported.
Security-camera footage from the neighbor’s home showed Drowne outside the home, shouting at him.
“She starts charging at me, still screaming,” the neighbor told FOX 35, “and so I kind of backed up, and she just swings and hits me in the left corner part of my eye there.”
Tracy Drowne, 42, pointed a handgun at sheriff's deputies when they responded to her home Tuesday about a battery call, according to reports. She died in a hospital after the deputies shot her.
When the deputies arrived, Drowne pointed a gun at them and they asked her multiple times to drop it, Santisteban said.
“She didn't and raised it at them, then you just heard three or four quick, boom-boom-boom!" he said.
The neighbor’s daughter, Madison, said she couldn’t believe how the ordeal ended.
“I never really thought anything would escalate this far, with the police and everything,” she told FOX 35. “So it was really shocking to see how everything had turned out.”
The deputies tried to provide medical aid to the woman until paramedics arrived, the Sentinel reported. They were placed on leave after the incident, pending an investigation.
Because of her personal struggles, Perez and their daughters tried to get help for her but she always resisted, Perez told the newspaper.
He said she served a number of years in the Army and was deployed at least twice but was never in a combat situation.
In 2013, while a sergeant first class, she received a U.S. Army Acquisition Award, the Sentinel reported.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement continues to investigate the case.
