DeWayne Watson’s been a firefighter-paramedic for 22 years, 20 of them in Riviera Beach. He’s seen a lot of tragedy.
But until Wednesday, he never looked into the eyes of a murdered law enforcement officer.
“I saw that he was... obviously the wounds were fatal,” Watson, the public information officer for his department, said Thursday morning. “By the time I was able to put hands on him, he’d already expired.”
Watson, on his way home from Riviera Beach to Port St. Lucie, had happened upon the shooting death of Florida Highway Patrol trooper Joseph Bullock near a rest stop on Interstate 95 near Palm City. And the killing of the man believed to have shot Bullock, who is believed to be the first law enforcement officer ever slain in the line of duty in Martin County.
Things got even stranger when he looked into the eyes of the man authorities say killed the gunman.