AUBURNDALE, Fla. – Friday morning turned violent in Auburndale when a domestic threat culminated in a fatal shooting and an officer-involved confrontation in a local business parking lot.
At approximately 9:12 a.m. on July 10, 2026, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Communications Center started receiving frantic 911 calls. Some callers reported a suicide at the Spectrum office located at 1004 U.S. Highway 92 West, while others reported active gunfire in the employee parking lot.
When Auburndale Police officers and Polk County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene, they found a 20-year-old woman on the ground suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Nearby lay her boyfriend, 39-year-old Derrick Brathwaite, who was still holding a firearm. According to details shared by Sheriff Grady Judd during an on-scene press briefing, Brathwaite pointed the gun directly at the officers and deputies as they tried to approach.
Five Auburndale officers and two deputy sheriffs opened fire, striking Brathwaite. First responders performed life-saving measures on both the victim and the suspect, but both succumbed to their injuries at the scene.
Investigators have since determined that Brathwaite had already fatally shot the victim before law enforcement arrived.
According to family members, the violence followed a threat made by Brathwaite the previous day, when he told the victim he was going to kill her and then kill himself. On Friday morning, the victim left her Lake Wales home and dropped her 3-year-old son off at Brathwaite’s parents’ home in Waverly before heading to her job as a customer service agent at the Spectrum facility.
Background checks show Brathwaite had an extensive criminal record, which included 31 prior felony charges and 24 misdemeanor charges.
Under Florida’s Marsy’s Law, the identity of the 20-year-old victim is being withheld. The names of the five officers and two deputies who fired their weapons are also protected from release for at least 72 hours under the same law.
The incident has launched five separate, concurrent investigations. The 10th Judicial Circuit’s Officer Involved Deadly Incident Task Force is conducting an independent review, alongside internal administrative investigations by both the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the Auburndale Police Department.
The Polk County Medical Examiner will perform autopsies to determine the official causes of death, and all final investigative findings will be forwarded to the 10th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office for review.
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