EUSTIS, Fla. – Two weeks after she sat down with News 6 to talk about her frustration with Eustis police, Carey Schreier said she plans to voice her concerns at Thursday night’s city commission meeting.
Schreier was not available for an interview before the meeting Thursday, but she spoke with News 6’s Mike Valente last month after filing a formal complaint against Chief Craig Capri.
“I was livid,” Schreier said, recounting how she felt when she realized that the shotgun Eustis police officers returned to her was still loaded.
Police had returned the gun to Schreier several months after her son used it in his suicide.
Chief Capri told News 6 last month that he apologized for the incident, acknowledging it was a mistake.
In a phone conversation with Valente Thursday, Capri said he would be at that night’s meeting but he did not want to be interviewed. He reiterated that two of his officers have been disciplined for the loaded shotgun incident and will undergo additional training.
“That’s a problem,” Mike Gambino said of hearing about the loaded shotgun returned to Schreier. “And I learned about this from (News 6’s) story, and I was like, ‘I can’t believe that’s our police department.’”
[RELATED: Eustis police return loaded shotgun used in son’s suicide to woman]
Gambino, a former Eustis city commission candidate, said he also plans to speak at Thursday night’s meeting to criticize Capri.
He filed a formal complaint Friday, May 29, against Capri after an encounter he had with the chief at a Walmart.
“It was threatening and confrontational,” Gambino recounted. “And we don’t have to do that at Walmart.”
Gambino claimed Capri spotted him in Walmart and approached him to try to “intimidate” Gambino, before saying, ‘What’s your problem with me? I thought we were good.’"
Over the phone, Capri disputed Gambino’s characterization of the interaction, noting he was off duty and in civilian clothes. He also claimed he did not approach Gambino in an aggressive manner.
While Gambino assumed that the chief approached him over a critical Facebook comment Gambino made about the loaded shotgun case, Capri told Valente he went up to Gambino to ask about a different comment in which Gambino wrote that Capri was “corrupt.”
Capri recounted asking Gambino something along the lines of, “Why do you think I’m corrupt?”
Valente asked Gambino Thursday about his response to that question.
“I called him a name that I probably shouldn’t say out loud,” Gambino said. “It was inappropriate, but he cornered me, to which he rebutted with a name of his own that shouldn’t be repeated.”
A third person who plans to speak at Thursday night’s meeting worked for the Eustis Police Department for nearly three decades.
“He should not be a police chief at all,” said retired Captain Gary Winheim.
Winheim, who left the force a few years after he was shot while on duty, said he had serious concerns about other aspects of how Eustis police handled the death case of Schreier’s son, Jordan Ellis.
“There’s a lot of things in this case that trouble me,” Winheim said. “I don’t believe that the case was handled correctly at all.”
In speaking to Valente Thursday, Capri acknowledged his department did make other mistakes outside of returning the shotgun while still loaded. However, he insisted that none of those mistakes would have changed the outcome of Ellis committing suicide.
Capri also flatly rejected any claims that he is a “liar” or “corrupt.”
Thursday night’s meeting begins at 6 p.m.