Evil can never be dead enough t shirt

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The Brevard County Sheriff's Office Charity is selling T-shirts stemming from last month's ambush-style shooting where a gunman opened fire on deputies after a traffic stop.

The shootout left a deputy injured and the gunman dead off U.S. 192 near West Melbourne.

The front of the $20 T-shirt depicts Sheriff Wayne Ivey's viral quote — "Evil can never be dead enough" — from his Sept. 9 Facebook video where he narrated dashcam footage of the fatal shootout.

The back of the shirt shows the hashtag #Magdump and a spent magazine dropping from a handgun.

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Dashcam video showed the suspect, Cocoa resident Paris Wilder, 38, abruptly opening fire on two deputies with a pistol-grip assault rifle during an Aug. 30 afternoon traffic stop.

Deputy Brian Potters was shot in the lower leg after Wilder rushed out of a back seat with the rifle — and Wilder also struck Potters multiple times with the firearm, the video shows.

After Potters and Wilder fell to the ground near the vehicles out of camera view, Deputy Tyler Thoman walked up and fired more than a dozen shots, killing Wilder. 

"Let there be no doubt. This individual got exactly what he deserved," Ivey said during the Facebook video.

“And to those out there who might be foolish enough to ask why we shot him so many times, that answer is simple: Because evil can never be dead enough,” Ivey said.

According to Urban Dictionary, a mag dump means "to fire a rifle or pistol as fast as possible until all ammunition in the magazine has been expended."

Ivey said the deputies' actions saved their lives and the lives of others at the scene — including a 2-month-old baby in the back seat of a car that was in the line of fire.

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The charity advertised the T-shirt on its Facebook page Wednesday, offering pre-order sales for $20. In a related Facebook post on the Brevard County Sheriff's Office page, Ivey referred people to the charity's page with a note to "check out some of the great merchandise."

The charity supports law enforcement and firefighters in times of need, along with homeless pets, Ivey said in the post.

On the BCSO Facebook post, Sanford resident Emalee Kimball replied that she was "horrified" by the shirt, and its messaging can be taken out of context.

"I’m a resident of Sanford. Police violence has been something that's been front and center in our world ever since the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman — by someone who is saying they're some sort of vigilante cop trying to protect themselves," Kimball said in a phone interview.

"So for me, that's what (the shirt) makes me think of — people thinking that they can use the self-defense claim in any scenario to justify killing people," she said.

Others on the page cheered the shirt and said they had already placed orders.

Messages seeking comment about the T-shirts were left for Lindsey Deaton, executive director of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office Charity, and Tod Goodyear, sheriff's spokesperson.

Potters is expected to make a full recovery, a sheriff's news release said last week. The investigation into the deputy-involved shooting will be submitted to the State Attorney's Office for review after it is complete.

Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or . Twitter: @RickNeale1

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