{"id":59249,"date":"2025-11-20T13:37:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=59249"},"modified":"2025-11-20T13:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:37:19","slug":"he-made-us-kill-him-polk-deputies-shot-brick-wielding-attacker-judd-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/11\/20\/he-made-us-kill-him-polk-deputies-shot-brick-wielding-attacker-judd-says\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018He made us kill him\u2019: Polk deputies shot brick-wielding attacker, Judd says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A convicted child rapist was gunned down during an encounter with a Polk County deputy, according to the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The incident happened on Saturn Street in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?height=476&#038;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpolkcountysheriff%2Fvideos%2F725587276636640%2F&#038;show_text=false&#038;width=267&#038;t=0\" width=\"267\" height=\"476\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowFullScreen=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sheriff Grady Judd said at about 3:07 p.m. on Wednesday, a 911 call came in saying Kentae Govan was beating an \u201celderly man\u201d in the head with a brick. The sheriff said the attack was unprovoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A woman tried to shove Govan off the victim, but the suspect allegedly chased her down, attacked her, and stole her cellphone because she said she was calling 911.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe said over and over,\u201d Judd said. \u201cI am not going back to prison. They will have to kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the sheriff, three deputies \u2014 deputies Diaz, Mathis, and Sookhoo \u2014 arrived at the scene and ordered the man to throw down the brick<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Judd said Govan refused and began charging at the deputies, who tased him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOne of our witnesses said he just pulled the taser out and continued to charge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Govan continued to charge at the deputies, Mathis and Sookhoo fired six shots at the suspect and immediately began rendering first aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe was transferred subsequently to Lakeland Regional Health, where he succumbed to his injuries,\u201d Judd said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Judd said it appears that Govan\u2019s actions were an attempt to \u201ccommit suicide by cop.\u201d According to the sheriff, the suspect previously spent 23 years in prison, 16 for sexual battery of a child and seven for failure to register as a sex offender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI believe based upon the early information, this was clearly a suicide by cop,\u201d the sheriff said. \u201cHe had been in prison over half of his life for sexually battering a child, and he said over and over, I am not going back to prison. I am not going back to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe made us kill him; it was his choice to be shot tonight,\u201d Judd added. \u201cWe didn\u2019t make that decision. He did, and we obliged him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 10th Judicial Circuit\u2019s Officer-Involved Deadly Incident (OIDI) Task Force was at the scene investigating Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The victim, who was beaten with the brick, was said to have survived and is at Lakeland Regional for treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A convicted child rapist was gunned down during an encounter with a Polk County deputy, according to the sheriff\u2019s office. The incident happened on Saturn Street in Lakeland. Sheriff Grady&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTFcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMjAyNS0xMS0yMFQxMzMxNTUuOTUwLndlYnA_Zml0PTE5MiUyQzI1OCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Ilx1MjAxOEhlIG1hZGUgdXMga2lsbCBoaW1cdTIwMTk6IFBvbGsgZGVwdXRpZXMgc2hvdCBicmljay13aWVsZGluZyBhdHRhY2tlciwgSnVkZCBzYXlzIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.csBt6t7DggzbxE0OTzwWAATioRAZNurzLhN39SGcxIwMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":59251,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-20T133155.950.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[12648,12649],"class_list":["post-59249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-he-made-us-kill-him-polk-deputies-shot-brick-wielding-attacker","tag-judd-says"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59252,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59249\/revisions\/59252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}