Cleandrew Oliver said he and his family in Tennessee and Louisiana had been searching for his mother when they learned that a Broward County Sheriff’s Office deputy had fatally shot her on Monday in Deerfield Beach.
Oliver said his mother, Debra Lobbins, had vanished more than a decade ago. BSO reported that a deputy fatally shot her at about 7 p.m., outside of the Walgreens at 1005 South Federal Highway.
“For the longest, we had been keeping hope that she has been alive,” Oliver said.
Oliver said Lobbins, 60, had a history of mental illness. Deputies said she was homeless when witnesses called 911 to report she was swinging two knives around.
“When my mom was in her right mind, she was a great mom,” Oliver said.
BSO reported Lobbins “moved toward” a deputy “while swinging” a knife aggressively despite his orders to drop it, so he pulled out his service gun and fired.
Lobbins, who was armed with two 18-inch knives, died, according to BSO deputies. Oliver said there should be another way for deputies to respond to a person’s mental health crisis.
“If you pop up as an officer and you got on a uniform and you are yelling, ‘Drop the knife!’ That’s not going to make a person with mental health snap back into reality,” Oliver said.
BSO has a crisis intervention training team and a co-responder program.
“Something has to change,” Oliver said, adding that he had questions for the deputy who fatally shot his mother, “ Why couldn’t you hold her there until you were able to get someone more professional to the scene?
“I don’t understand it ... You could have tased her.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is conducting a routine investigation into the shooting.