A Tamarac man says Broward Sheriff's deputies took too long to respond after he called 911 to report a man trying to break into his home.
Bill Norkunas said he was face-to-face with the suspect with only the door between them during the incident on Nov. 7.
"He started kicking the door, so I took the handgun I have … and I pointed it right at his face," Norkunas said. "And he looked right at it. He reached down and picked up a brick and he started smashing the door in."
Norkunas, who uses crutches, says the suspect wasn’t phased by the gun. He called 911 for help but says deputies took too long.
"You better get somebody here, quick," he's heard saying in the 911 call.
“I've got crutches and a handgun and a crazy man trying to get inside to kill me," Norkunas said. "And I kept pleading, please, send the sheriff’s deputies, and not one sheriff’s deputy came down that street."
Eventually the man walked up to BSO deputies down the street and turned himself in.
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"This was life-threatening," Norkunas said. "And if the sheriff is not gonna come when it’s life-threatening, when will they come?"
Kim Ehly lives next door and also called 911 when she heard the man trying to break into Norkunas’ home.
“I’ve been on the phone with you for six minutes," Ehly is heard saying in a 911 call. "This guy could’ve been in my house and (expletive) hurt me by now."
"Supposedly they were setting up a perimeter, and the thing that I was saying was, while you all are setting up a perimeter, we could be injured by this guy," Ehly said.
BSO said in a statement that they began a "thorough review" over the incident.
“Within days of the incident in Tamarac, the Broward Sheriff’s Office began a thorough review into how the deputies on scene handled the response to this fluid and rapidly evolving situation," the statement read. "The review into this incident is ongoing. The Broward Sheriff’s Office responds to tens of thousands of calls for service each year. The vast majority of these calls are handled appropriately with satisfactory outcomes. BSO constantly reviews and assesses its responses to emergency calls in order to provide the highest level of service to the public."
