A 41-year-old man with a long history of violent crime is dead after Polk County deputies shot him in a Lakeland street, moments after he allegedly beat an elderly man with a brick and attacked a woman who tried to help.
According to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, the suspect, Kentae Govan, shouted, “I am not going back to prison. They will have to kill me,” as the chaos unfolded.
By that point, Judd says, Govan had already turned the neighborhood into a war zone with nothing more than a heavy piece of stone in his hand.
Brutal Brick Attack On An Elderly Neighbor
Sheriff Judd told reporters, in comments carried live by LiveNOW from FOX, that the first 911 call came in around 3:07 p.m.
Callers reported “a man out here with a brick and he was beating an elderly man in the head.”
Judd says the victims had allegedly just been sitting on a porch in the neighborhood when Govan “became angry,” picked up what he described as a large stone roughly the size of both hands, and charged.
The elderly man was knocked down and beaten in the head as Govan straddled him, still striking him with the rock.
A woman nearby tried to intervene.
According to Judd, she managed to shove Govan off the older man, but that didn’t end the attack – it redirected it.
The sheriff says Govan chased the woman into a shed while she was trying to dial 911.
Inside, Judd says, he beat her as well and stole her phone, telling her and others repeatedly that he was not going back to prison.
FOX 13 reporter Danielle Zulkosky summarized it bluntly in her televised report: an elderly man attacked “out of the blue” with a brick, a witness assaulted when she tried to help, and deputies arriving to find an out-of-control suspect armed with the same weapon.
The elderly victim, Judd says, was taken to Lakeland Regional Health and remained hospitalized with serious injuries.
A Life Spent In Prison – And A House Full Of Predators
Sheriff Judd spent an unusual amount of time walking the media through Govan’s background.
He held up a photo and said Govan had “spent over half of his life in the Florida prison system.”
According to Judd, Govan served 16 years in prison for sexually battering a child, was released on probation, then went back to prison for another seven years after failing to register as a sex offender.
That’s 23 years behind bars before this latest incident.
Judd also said Govan had a long criminal history beyond the sex offense – “about 24 previous felony charges,” including burglary, theft, arson, weapons charges, and aggravated assault.
“He wasn’t in trouble for the first time Wednesday,” Judd told reporters. “This is a bad man.”
After his most recent release, Judd says Govan was living in a group home in the neighborhood that residents had nicknamed the “Chomo house,” short for “child molester.”
The sheriff said the home housed sexual predators and offenders and that deputies had last checked it on Halloween as part of routine monitoring.
Judd added that Govan was unemployed, receiving federal disability benefits (SSI), and had been sleeping very little and acting erratic in the days leading up to the incident, though he said investigators have not yet confirmed whether drugs played a role.
You can feel Judd’s frustration in that background.
From his perspective, this was a violent career offender placed back in a residential neighborhood, surrounded by ordinary families and older residents, with an eventual outcome that almost feels inevitable.
“Throw Down The Brick”: Deputies Try Less-Lethal First
When deputies finally arrived on Saturn Street, they weren’t walking into a hypothetical threat.
They were walking up on a man who had allegedly just crushed an elderly neighbor’s skull and beaten a woman with the same object.
Judd told reporters the first deputy on scene was Deputy Diaz, who arrived alone and encountered Govan in the street, still holding the brick.
Backup quickly arrived in the form of Deputies Soko and Mathis.
According to Judd, Diaz repeatedly shouted commands: “Throw down the brick. Throw down the brick. Throw down the brick.”
Govan refused, Judd says, and instead began advancing toward the deputies.
At that point, two deputies deployed their Tasers, Judd told the press.
One witness, he said, reported seeing Govan simply pull the Taser probes out and keep charging, still armed with the brick.
When the less-lethal option failed and Govan kept coming, Judd says Deputies Diaz and Mathis fired a combined six shots.
Govan went down, and deputies immediately moved in, removed the brick, and began life-saving measures until Polk Fire Rescue could transport him.
Govan was taken to Lakeland Regional Health and later died from his injuries, Judd confirmed in the live briefing.
If the facts hold up the way Judd describes them, this is almost the textbook law-enforcement nightmare: close distance, a blunt weapon that can kill with one blow, a suspect charging, Tasers ineffective, and almost no time left to think.
Witnesses Say Deputies “Didn’t Have A Choice”
Sheriff Judd didn’t rely only on his deputies’ accounts.
He emphasized what eyewitnesses told detectives at the scene.
One witness, Judd says, is currently on probation and admitted he has “been in trouble” before.
According to Judd, that witness still told investigators the deputies “acted professional” and “didn’t have a choice” because Govan was coming at them with the same brick he used on the elderly victim.
Another witness, Judd said, told detectives he’d been “raised to resist law enforcement” and had always fought the police in the past.
Even he reportedly said the deputies had no choice but to fire when Govan advanced on them with the brick.
Zulkosky echoed that in her FOX 13 report, noting that Judd believes the shooting was justified based on Govan’s actions and his repeated statements about not going back to jail.
She underlined that deputies had tried to use a Taser first, and only opened fire after that failed.
Those witness statements matter.
It’s one thing when police say they had no choice; it’s another when people who generally distrust law enforcement and have their own rap sheets back that up.
“He Made Us Kill Him”: Sheriff Calls It Suicide By Cop
Sheriff Judd didn’t tiptoe around his conclusion.
Based on Govan’s words – “I am not going back to prison. They will have to kill me” – and his actions, Judd said he believes this was “clearly a suicide by cop.”
“He chose the end. He chose the place. He chose the time. He chose the method,” Judd told reporters. “He’s a bad man no more, and he made that decision.”
That kind of language is classic Judd: blunt, moral, and meant to send a message.
It also speaks to a very real phenomenon where desperate or disturbed suspects force a deadly confrontation, knowing what the likely outcome will be.
From a public-safety standpoint, it’s hard to argue that deputies had some magical, non-violent option left once a violent felon charged them with a brick after already beating two people.
From a human standpoint, it’s still tragic – for the victims, for the deputies who had to pull the trigger, and even in a bleak way for someone who spent most of his life bouncing in and out of prison and ended it in the street.
Judd stressed that an officer-involved shooting task force will investigate the case, with another agency taking the lead.
The results will go to State Attorney Brian Haas, who will decide whether the shooting was legally justified.
Bigger Questions About Public Safety And Repeat Offenders
The facts as Sheriff Grady Judd and reporter Danielle Zulkosky lay them out paint a pretty straightforward legal picture: a violent felony in progress, a suspect armed and advancing, Tasers failing, and officers using deadly force as a last resort.
But the case raises bigger policy questions that go beyond one brick and one shooting.
Govan was a convicted child sex offender with more than two decades in prison and a long felony record.
He was living in a group home full of other sexual predators, drawing federal benefits, and according to Judd, acting erratic and sleeping very little.
It’s fair to ask how many chances someone like that should get to be back in an ordinary residential neighborhood.
At some point, the system’s tolerance for “second chances” bumps up against the community’s right not to have a man like this snap and attack an elderly neighbor on the porch.
There’s also the Tasers.
People often say, “Why didn’t they just tase him?” In this case, per Judd and Zulkosky, they did. It didn’t work.
That’s the uncomfortable reality: less-lethal tools are great when they work, and useless when they don’t.
When they fail, you’re suddenly back in a lethal-force decision with almost no time to think.
Sheriff Judd’s framing – that Govan “made us kill him” – will rub some people the wrong way because it sounds harsh.
But if the evidence lines up with what Judd and Zulkosky describe, the core truth is hard to escape: deputies didn’t show up looking for a fight; they showed up to stop one that was already underway.
An elderly man is in the hospital. A woman was beaten trying to help.
And a man who spent more than half his life in prison ended it exactly the way he said he would if anyone tried to take him back.
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
