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Deputy Shoots Agitated Man

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By LISA A. DAVIS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 18, 2007

HOLIDAY - Before a sheriff's deputy shot Stephen Miholics, he was already down on his luck.

He arrived home after 9 p.m. Tuesday in a drunken rage - much to the chagrin of his 51-year-old mother, Dorothy Miholics. She has a distaste for alcohol and says her 23-year-old son, who lives with her, can't handle his booze.

His behavior Tuesday night is precisely why she feels that way, though she hadn't seen him so agitated before, the sleep-deprived mother said Wednesday morning.

Almost instantly upon returning to 3450 Devonshire Drive in Beacon Square, Stephen Miholics started making a fuss, eventually busting out two windows in the back of the house.

'He was obviously not feeling any pain,' Dorothy Miholics said.

The physical pain might have come a couple of hours later when a bullet pierced his body. But his mental distress had been building for weeks, his mother said.

After living in New York and Texas for a while, Stephen Miholics has been job hunting these past two months or so with no success. A letter from a New York court arrived in the mail recently stating he would be jailed - again - if he didn't pay $313 in traffic violations, she said.

'He was distraught over that. He was distraught over that he couldn't find a job. He was distraught because he found out yesterday that his friend is in jail. He was distraught over that and the combination of the three.'

So Stephen Miholics got his mother's undivided attention Tuesday as he shouted in the house and glass started shattering. She said he was trying to get her to call the sheriff's office.

'He just wanted to go to jail because he knew he had to,' Dorothy Miholics said.

But she didn't call.

'I just wanted him to go to sleep,' she said.

Sister Calls 911

Shortly before 11 p.m., his 18-year-old sister, Elizabeth, couldn't take any more and dialed 911, partly to protect her 1-year-old son.

Dorothy Miholics was outside and spotted two deputies parking across the street from her home, just south of Moog Road, and flagged them down.

A few moments later, her son stood near her, holding something and baiting the deputies.

'Go ahead. Bring it on,' she recalled him saying.

Soon a shot rang out, and Stephen Miholics hit the ground.

He was in fair condition Wednesday at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg.

By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, there were no signs of what had happened in front of his mother's home except for a bloodied towel discarded on the lawn.

Hours before, Deputy John Ardolino and his trainee, Rodney Linville, were met outside by Stephen Miholics - who had a knife in each hand, sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll said.

'He was told to drop the weapon, several times I understand, and he did not,' Doll said.

Stephen Miholics stepped toward the deputies, and that's when they reacted, the spokesman said.

Ardolino, a field training officer and seven-year agency veteran, fired one shot, striking the 23-year-old in the chest.

At first, his mother didn't realize he had been shot. The noise wasn't very loud, she said, so she thought her son was only stunned by a Taser. He was bleeding from breaking the windows. But when deputies told her to get a towel and started applying pressure to another wound, she realized he had taken a bullet.

Tasering was warranted, she said. A gunshot was not.

'He was definitely upset,' she said. 'He had a tough time because he couldn't find a job - but to shoot him? That wasn't necessary. I mean, he didn't lunge for anybody. He didn't move. I mean, his hands were down.'

And, she said, he wasn't holding a sharp knife. She doesn't even keep any in the house because she doesn't eat much meat, she said.

He was holding a metal spatula, she said. The mother saw nothing else, but her daughter did, possibly a butter knife.

'I'm upset they felt they had to use a gun,' Dorothy Miholics said.

State Investigating Shooting

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating. Spokeswoman Trena Reddick said she can't comment about what evidence was collected from the scene while it's still an open case.

Ardolino has had mostly rave reviews from his supervisors on annual job evaluations since starting at the sheriff's office in September 2000. He's on paid administrative leave, as is routine for deputy-involved shootings.

Doll said FDLE agents will sort out what happened. But Ardolino appeared to have reacted appropriately, the spokesman said.

'Considering the circumstances, deadly force was a viable option,' Doll said.

He doesn't know what kind of weapons, if any, were found at the scene.

'I don't know if deputies had a clear view of what he had in his hands,' Doll said. 'It was dark out there so the deputies thought he had a knife in both hands.'

Whether that's true could take weeks, possibly months to determine through the FDLE's investigation.

For now, Stephen Miholics will recover in the hospital instead of being put behind bars, where he spent more than two years after being convicted on child abuse charges in 2003.

Ardolino will wait for the all-clear to go back to work.

And perhaps Dorothy Miholics will get a good night's sleep after being kept up until after 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083 or ldavis@tampatrib.com.

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