LAKE COUNTY, Fla — A gruesome scene unfolded in Lake County on Aug. 2, 2024. Deputies responding to a disturbance call near Eustis were ambushed by gunfire. Three deputies were hit by gunfire, with Master Deputy Bradley Link succumbing to his injuries.
Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell has never spoken publicly about what happened that night - until now.
After eight months, Grinnell is still shaken by the deadly events that night. He said it haunts him to this day and may continuing doing so the rest of his career.
Before Link’s death, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office hadn’t lost a deputy in the line of duty for 20 years. It’s extremely difficult, and no law enforcement official wants to lose one of their own on their watch.
Grinnell addressed the shooting itself, saying Link was not patrolling that area, but he heard the 911 call and went to help anyway. It was the last call he would ever go on.
The sheriff said Link and another deputy entered through the back of the house and were met with gunfire.
Link was shot in the back and, despite trying to crawl out, was shot several more times after running out of bullets.
As he lay bleeding, negotiators pleaded with the family inside to let him go. Instead, the sheriff said the accused killers took control of his radio and spoke into it, reveling in the fact that they just shot a deputy.
“I think what affected me the most is riding to that call, listening to the radio where one of our radios was compromised by an occupant inside of that home and was telling all of us, all of the responding deputies what had just happened and that they were proud of what they did,” Grinnell said. “We were able to get that radio offline relatively quick, but a lot of our employees had to listen to that and it was horrible.”
Grinnell still chokes back tears when he talks about it. The pain is still so fresh.
Those in the department get those some feelings when they look at deputes Harold Howell, and Stefano Gargano, who survived their gunshots.
Neither man is back at work. They are still healing, both physically and mentally.
But the work continues just as it did before that night. That includes making sure justice is served.
Julie Sulpizo, the only member of the suspect family who survived that night, was deemed incompetent and sent to a mental health facility. The court determined she no longer meets the criteria for mental health commitment. A competency hearing is scheduled for May 29.
In the meantime, the focus is on healing, not just for the sheriff, but for the whole department and the community it serves.
“We’ve had a lot of time to go back and look at the events of that night. And it was an ambush. That simply put, it was an ambush. The deputies did everything that they could do. But they walked into a calculated ambush, and it went south, but they did everything that they were supposed to do,” Grinnell said.
“I want the community to know, and I believe they do know, that Bradley Link died a hero,” he said.
The radio transmissions have not yet been released but will likely be heard during the trial.
The sheriff said he has no doubt Sulpizo will end up in prison.
Grinnell indicted that religious beliefs heavily influenced the situation. The said the home contained a stockpile of guns, ammunition and bottled water. He said there was an absence of phones or a television, indicating they were isolated from society.
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