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•Dylan Deschaine Arrest: Body camera footage reveals a tense standoff at a Niceville convenience store on February 10, 2024, where Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputies and former Niceville Police Chief David Popwell apprehended murder suspect Dylan Deschaine.
•Chief Popwell’s Unexpected Involvement: Niceville Police Chief David Popwell, in civilian attire, arrived on scene, arrested Deschaine himself. The article talks about the chief’s alcohol consumption earlier in the evening.
•Aftermath and Transport: Following his arrest, Deschaine was temporarily placed in Popwell’s unmarked police vehicle before being taken to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center for treatment of a hand injury and subsequently transferred to the Okaloosa County Jail, where he remains in custody.
Only the body cameras of Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputies were on and rolling at the Cumberland Farms convenience store, where accused Mike Ledford Killer Dylan Deschaine was arrested in the early morning hours of February 10, 2024.
Those body cameras revealed that at least one Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputy believed that Niceville Police Chief David Popwell’s wife was in his patrol vehicle when he arrived on scene to arrest murder suspect Dylan Deschaine.
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Former Niceville Police Chief David Popwell swooped in when the suspect was cornered in the bathroom by deputies was credited with arresting the suspect. According to the initial arrest affidavit, Deschaine describes himself as a member of a notorious street gang, The Gangster Disciples. That gang has no known links to Northwest Florida.
We asked the Office of the State Attorney, Ginger Bowden Madden, for all of the body camera video from law enforcement during the standoff that made its way into discovery for the case against Deschaine. The state attorney’s office gave us seven videos covering our request.
City Manager David Deitch confirmed to Mid Bay News in an email that Popwell’s wife was in the vehicle at the time of the arrest and that Popwell had consumed an alcoholic bevrage earlier in the evening, but that the incident did not lead to his retirement a week later. “Chief Popwell self disclosed that he had a drink with dinner several hours ealier in the evening, prior to involving himself in the situation,” Deitch said via email in response to a question reporter Christopher Saul asked explicitly about Popwell’s alcohol consumption the evening of the killing, “At no time that evening, or since, has any one expressed concern that Chief Popwell was in any way impaired or under the influence of alcohol while at the arrest scene. At no time that night did I suspect he was impaired or intoxicated.” Popwell
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The First Body Cam on the scene comes from an Okaloosa County Sergeant inside the Cumberland Farms. He switches on his camera as he sits in front of the security system in the workroom to the side of the cashier’s stand in the front of the restroom.
Off camera – you can hear a man say, “Hey, he just walked back in. He’s in the store right now.” The deputy rises and walks toward the front of the store. He pauses to look at his phone. A thin blue line-style American flag background with a faint blue glow shows the time. It’s now midnight on the morning of February 10.
He turns to see Dylan Deschaine, in a white hoodie pulled over his head, paying for something at the register. As Dylan walks away from the counter, he says, “I’m not that bad of a person, bro, I swear to God.”
The deputy approaches the clerk. The clerk seems frozen, holding a couple of dollars in one hand and another hand opened palmed – as if he is in a permanent shrug.
“Is that who it was?” the deputy asks the clerk.
The clerk nods almost imperceptibly, and the deputy moves toward the back of the store – near the chilled drinks aisle.
“65, I’ve got him at the Cumberland,” the deputy says into his radio. He turns the corner on the chips aisle and sees a set of bathroom doors and an exit door. All three are closed. The sergeant radios in again – and looks to the clerk to ask if he went out the back door. The body cam doesn’t pick up a response to the question – but from what happens next, it’s clear Deschaine stayed in the bathroom.
The deputy scrolls through a group message on his phone – and then shouts, “Dylan!”
A couple of seconds later, the door alarm rings loudly. The deputy shouts again to Deschaine. “Dylan, step out and let me see your hands!”
Another person shows up on scene and asks, “Was it a knife or a gun?”
The deputy responds, “Knife. Potentially a gun.” The deputy explains the situation in the narrow hallway – noting the two bathrooms, the exit and another door on the opposite side of the bathrooms.
The other person, presumably a senior deputy without a body camera on – or was not released by the state attorney’s office, asks about K-9s. He tells the deputy with a body cam on that he has two K-9 Units. “Get ’em in route,” the other voice says.
Immediately after the discussion, the other voice in the video we believe to be another sheriff’s deputy tells Deschaine for the first of many times in the next 10 minutes that Deschaine needs to surrender immediately, “or we’re going to send a K-9 in there to come and get you.”
Three minutes into the first deputy’s video, a second body camera pops on. This video, registered to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant, shows a deputy running with maglight out and gun drawn, to the back of the Cumberland Farms Building. Okaloosa Sheriff’s Deputies, and the deputies alone, have the perimeter secured. There are no Niceville Police Department (NPD) officers on scene in any of the videos until former NPD Chief Popwell arrives.
A third body camera turns on – immediately followed by a fourth. These cameras belong to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputy K-9 Handler and another person registered as a ‘K-9 Assist’. They are outside the Cumberland Farms, where Deschaine has holed up in the bathroom.
The deputy deploys his K-9 and begins to walk him into the building. The dog’s panting is broken up by the loud alarm bell that shatters the quiet again as the pair enter the convenience store.
The dog and handler move to the edge of the short breezeway between the main store and the back exit, which contains doors to the bathrooms and what they believe to be a small office on the other side of the hallway. Another deputy and their body cam enter along with the K-9 Unit. A total of four deputies now block the hall, guns drawn and pointed at the small hallway.
The handler works on the leash that attaches him to his K-9 – you can see the goosebumps crawling up and down his arms as the deputies prepare for what might happen next.
The bell rings again as the lieutenant makes his way around into the store and takes up position behind the K-9 unit. The lieutenant turns back to the clerk, who’s stood his post at the cash register this whole time. “There’s only one person in the store, right?” he asks the clerk.
Someone says “taser” declaratively, and the sound of a weapon leaving its holster can be heard as some deputies pull their less-than-lethal weapons. Green dots mark the beige linoleum floor that prove tasers have been deployed.
The lieutenant hustles up to the counter and asks the clerk what Deschaine looks like. He tells him that Dylan has a white sweater on, shaved head, a hand in his pocket and two beers. “That’s him, dude,” one of the deputies says. The lieutenant tells the deputies that Dylan has an injury to his left hand. All the while, the K-9 Deputy has been shouting at Deschaine – urging him to give up so that he does not have to send the dog in to get him.
At the 5:30 mark of the beginning of our video’s supercut of the body camera footage, the K-9 handler releases his dog, called ‘Kota’ in the video to inspect the closed door. The handler commands the dog to search, and the dog moves toward the door. The dog hops up on its hind legs at the first door to the left and begins to bark. The dog returns to its handler, who puts the leash back on it.
With confirmation from the dog that Deschaine was in a bathroom, deputies pressed just a little bit closer – covering up both ends of the short hallway that emptied out into the main store.
The lieutenant gives out orders: one deputy is to shout commands to Deschaine another deputy is to handle the K-9. With that – the lieutenant heads back to the clerk to ask him for a broom. The sergeant who first arrived on the scene heads to his patrol vehicle to retrieve a stab shield.
Inside, as the lieutenant begins to try the door with the broom handle the sergeant speaks to a corporal about what’s happened so far while the corporal quickly helps to get the stab shield ready for use.
A fifth deputy shows up on scene – the sergeant asks if he has a ram. The fifth deputy says no. The shield is ready, and the deputy runs back inside with it to help the others.
The deputies continue to call to Dylan – asking him to speak up if he is talking to them as the sergeant with the stab shield gets into position closer to the door.
Just as the team gets their stab shield into position – the doorbell rings again. Chief David Popwell appears on the edge of the lieutenant’s body camera. He’s not in police attire – instead wearing blue jeans and a jean jacket. He has his badge hanging around his neck. His phone is to his ear.
“I’m on the phone with him!” the chief yells at one of the deputies.
At the same time, Deschaine leaves the bathroom with his hands up. His right hand is wrapped in a white cloth and is soaked in blood. “Hands up! Hands up!” a deputy shouts. Deschaine kneels to the ground with his hands behind his head, which is covered by a blue Yankees cap under the white hood of his sweatshirt.
“I’m chill, bro, I’m chill,” Deschaine says. Popwell walks through the line of deputies to Deschaine.
Deschaine moves his hands behind his back as Chief Popwell moves closer to him. Chief moves his gun, a holstered Colt 1911, to pull his handcuffs out to make the arrest himself.
“Chief, Chief!” a deputy shouts.
“I know you hate dogs,” Popwell says to Deschaine while looking back at the deputies with a cold stare.
“This guy is looking at me crazy,” Deschaine says. The suspect then moves his left hand from behind his back to point at a deputy.
“I’m not looking at you crazy,” the deputy says back to him.
“don’t worry about him,” Popwell says at the same time a deputy tells Deschaine to keep his hands behind his back.
“they are behind my back,” Deschaine retorts with an aggressive cock of his head. He then mouths something unintelligible at the deputy.
Popwell awkwardly maneuvers around Deschaine’s kneeling body.
The cuffs ratchet around Deschaine’s wrists. He says to the deputies, “Click, click. I’ve been on the phone with an officer for two hours. Click, click.”
Deschaine and Popwell stand, and Popwell begins to walk Deschiane out of the building. Popwell stops briefly to pick up what appears to be his phone from a red crate along the hallway wall.
“Shoot me, bro,” Deschaine says to a deputy. Popwell says something unintelligible as he walks behind Deschaine.
The deputies who had been on the scene for the last ten minutes watch as the pair leave.
The lieutenant turns off his body camera first as the K-9 and its handler head back to their squad car.
A deputy says, “Tell Niceville to get somebody in here to search this bathroom. It’s not our scene.”
“Wow,” says another deputy.
“I never saw him coming,” The K-9 Assist deputy says to the lieutenant. The lieutenant cuts him off. Another deputy in a beige shirt blows out air and puts his hands on his head.
“Everybody off?” the deputy says to everyone, seemingly referring to their body-worn cameras.
The body cameras turn off.
About eight minutes later, another body camera turns on – this one belonging to another sheriff’s deputy.
Two deputies, including the lieutenant on shift in the area, discuss the scene happening behind them – at Niceville Police Chief David Popwell’s unmarked grey patrol vehicle that belongs to the city of Niceville.
Behind the opened tailgate, Dylan Deschaine stands next to police with his hands cuffed behind his back. Deschaine backs his body into the unmarked SUV as Niceville Police Officers stand in a semicircle around him.
Chief Popwell leans into the back of the tailgate and begins to speak to Deschaine. As he backs in, Deschaine can be heared screaming and sobbing in what appears to be pain.
According to City Manager Deitch, Deschaine was “initially and temporarily” put in the back of the police vehicle issued to Popwell. Deschaine was eventually transported to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center to “address the cut on his hand,” and was then taken to the Okaloosa County Jail – where he has been in custody in the eight months since the alleged killing took place.
“They’re not going to get you,” Popwell can be heard saying in the video to Deschaine, “no one is going to lay a hand on you.”
Dechaine responds in a partially understandable screed that includes an racial slur against African Americans, and then laughs.
“He hasn’t been searched,” one of the deputies tells the other.
We asked Niceville City Manager David Deitch about this claim and asked about it’s veracity. He told us, “No,” when asked if this was a true statement, “A NPD sergeant completed a pat down/search of Mr. Deschaine.”
The body camera wearer says to the deputy in the beige shirt, “So I guess that’s the chief’s wife in the –” and is cut off by the lieutenant, who taps the deputy in the beige shirt with his pointer finger and thumb pushed together. “There’s a female in that car,” he says in an instructive tone, “there’s no cage [a protective barrier for transporting suspects that separates the officer from the suspect], he hasn’t been searched,” the lieutenant continues.
“Not a problem,” the deputy in the beige shirt says, “I’m going to lay down suppresive fire.”
At the same time, the lieutenant says, “I’m going to stay here to help if something goes south.”
The deputy in the beige shirt begins to speak, “I talked to Watkins,” he starts. “Travis,” the deputy says as he raises his eyebrows, “I talked to Watkins and he’s like, ‘just write memos.'”
The camera shuts off.
Deschaine remains in the custody of the Okaloosa County Jail as he awaits a trial. The 25-year-old faces charges of second-degree murder with a weapon and two counts of battery on an officer or firefighter. All three are felony charges.
Deschaine is due again in court on December 11 for a pre-trial conference. The pre-trial conference has been continued six times so far.
Niceville-area attorney Michael Weinstock represents Deschiane, according to Okaloosa Clerk of Court records.
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