In Remarkable Display of De-Escalation, Sheriff’s Deputy Bryan Carter Talks 22-Year-Old Down from Gun Suicide

When residents got an AlertFlagler warning in late morning Monday to stay away from Burning Ember Lane and for residents around there to stay indoors, 22-year-old Isaac Malone Lewis was standing in front of a house on Burning Ember, with a gun to his head. 

His 21-year-old girlfriend had taken refuge in the house with a friend after the couple had had problems, and  a judge had ordered Lewis days earlier to stay away from his girlfriend. 

For two hours, Lewis sat in the grass, the gun to his head, as Sheriff’s deputy Bryan Carter, a seasoned negotiator, talked him down in a remarkable display of de-escalation tactics and humane rapport. (The house had been evacuated.) 

“I’m here on behalf of you,” Carter told him, yelling across the street before they were able to speak by phone as  Lewis was surrounded but not smothered by the SWAT team. “Hey, don’t worry about these guys. Just me and you okay?” Carter told him. “Do you have a personal cell phone? Can I talk to you? Can I get you a cell phone and we can talk?”

Once they were on the phone, Carter spoke to him as if he were his counselor of long date. “ Can we talk for a minute and try to put me in a place of understanding of what you’re going through right now?” Carter told Lewis. “There is nothing saying that that life is over. Okay, I don’t know what kind of legal stuff you might be into, but listen, there’s always another day. But I’m not going to put myself in your shoes. What I can tell you, though, is that this is a temporary issue that you have a whole life to figure out and make better and become a better Christian.” 

Carter promised to take him to his men’s group at church, where others have criminal histories. “So what? They did it, they fixed their issues,” he told him. 

“I’m in a corner,” Lewis told him. “She shows me that there’s no point.”

“I can’t have a good dude leaving this earth,” Carter told him. “We need so many good people in this world. You’re not a bad dude. You’re a good dude. I would be proud to have you as a brother, Isaac, I would be so proud. And there’s so many people in this world, there’s me, there’s your brother, Jeremiah, there’s your mother, there’s your dog, Oscar, at home. Dude, there’s so many people in this world, including people that are around me right now that are hearing your story, and they are hurting. They are hurting for you, Isaac. You’re so young, and you’ve got so much more to give.” 

The video the Sheriff’s Office released then shows Lewis walking backward, as commanded toward the SWAT team, after dropping his weapon. Lewis was arrested and charged with fleeing police, aggravated stalking and resisting arrest. 

Lewis and his girlfriend had been living together for five years in a P-section house in Palm Coast and were engaged. But he’d become abusive and controlling to the point of following her to work, she told authorities, and she was planning to leave him. She’d packed up and booked a motel room. 

More serious issues unfolded last Thursday (March 26), when Lewis broke into his girlfriend’s car as it was parked at a restaurant in the Hammock, where she worked. (He had used a key left at the P-section house, but without the car owner’s permission.) He’d allegedly stolen several items, including clothing, shoes and personal items and documents, the lot valued at around $400. He’d left a bouquet of flowers under the car, and on the driver’s seat, a photograph of the two of them with a ring on top of it.

As sheriff’s deputies were investigating the case at the business–the alleged victim had opted to pursue charges–Lewis texted and called, and told her that “I just wanted you to have a reason to come back to the house.” He’d taken the items back to the P-section house, where he was calling from. 

Using evidence from the texts, the phone call, license plate reader data and the uncovering of the burglary, deputies prepared to seek Lewis out and arrest him, only for deputies to learn that Lewis was driving back to the restaurant location. At close to 11 p.m., after he arrived in his Chevrolet Silverado, he was arrested and taken to the county jail for booking. He was released on March 27 on $3,000 bond. 

The same day, County Judge Melissa Distler signed a no-contact order applying to Lewis, regarding his girlfriend. 

Ignoring a no-contact order is a felony. Lewis ignored it, messaging his girlfriend–by then, his ex–through different platforms. Sunday night when she left work after 10 p.m., she noticed that he was following her. She didn’t want him to know the motel where she was staying, so she turned into the parking lot at Cracker Barrel, only for Lewis to circle around her several times. She ended up staying the night with a friend on Burning Ember. 

Monday morning, the friend called 911 to report that Lewis’s Silverado had been driving by, and flowers had been delivered at the address. When deputies arrived, the Silverado was parked in front of a house on Burning Ember, but fled as soon as a deputy approached, then almost struck  a deputy who was trying to make contact with Lewis. After losing Lewis, the deputy was informed that Lewis was back in front of the house.

That’s where deputies found him with the gun to his head. 

“Deputies realized Lewis had not only committed a violent felony but was also experiencing a mental health crisis and immediately began talking with Lewis,” a sheriff’s release states. Carter, a trained crisis negotiator, established contact with Lewis, speaking with him for nearly two hours in-person, over the phone, and eventually on FaceTime before Lewis’s phone battery died. 

A SWAT team robot delivered a replacement phone.  Carter, a Marine Corps veteran who’s been with the agency since 2018, reestablished contact. 

“During the incident,” the release states, “the Crisis Negotiation Team was supported by a range of technologies to enhance situational awareness and support de-escalation efforts and for the safety of all involved. Analysts and deputies in the Real Time Crime Center used live feeds from body cameras and drones to maintain a visual on Lewis and relay timely and accurate information to deputies on scene.”

Just before 2 p.m., Lewis removed the magazine from the firearm, cleared the live round of ammunition in the chamber, and placed the weapon on the ground. Deputies then safely secured Lewis without further incident.

“Deputy First Class Carter, our Crisis Negotiation and SWAT teams, and our analysts in the Real Time Crime Center worked together to save a life today,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in the release. “I am incredibly proud of how they de-escalated and safely resolved a very dangerous armed situation. These are very delicate situations, but our crisis negotiators, and really all our deputies, are well-trained in de-escalation and crisis intervention techniques. They were supported by what was truly a team effort. Our crisis negotiators, deputies, SWAT team, Real Time Crime Center, and 911 dispatchers all worked together to successfully defuse the situation and achieve the best possible outcome.”

The situation had some similarities with a standoff with a 23-year-old man with a gun to his head on a Point Pleasant Drive construction lot in 2013, though in that case the standoff happened at night, it was brief, and it ended with the man shooting himself. Nevertheless there have been no officer-involved fatalities on this agency’s watch since a December 2012 shooting in the B section, despite many standoffs. 

Lewis was first treated at AdventHealth then booked at the jail. “We pride ourselves on having a detention facility that doesn’t just house inmates but actively works to improve their lives,” the sheriff said. “We offer mental health treatment through a variety of programs and partnerships with organizations in our community, so our inmates can get the help they need,” the sheriff said. “Although he was arrested, we hope he realizes that he essentially now has a second chance in life and uses the opportunities available in the jail to find support, move past this situation, and make the most of the rest of his life.”