Several times each week, I drive past the street sign posted on 28th Avenue in Gifford to honor longtime deputy Garry Chambliss, who was off duty when he was shot and killed by a stray bullet while visiting a relative’s home, across from Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church.
Never do I fail to notice it.
Always, it makes me wonder: Why hasn’t the thug who fired that fatal shot been arrested and charged with murder, especially since sheriff’s detectives believe the killer still lives in the community?
How is it possible that deputies, knowing one of their own was senselessly slain on our streets, haven’t rousted enough drug dealers and squeezed enough snitches to identify the gunman?
Doesn’t anyone in Gifford, where Chambliss grew up and was a beloved member of the community, care enough to do what’s right and drop a dime on the shooter?
Two years have passed since that tragic February Friday night – four days after Chambliss’ 50th birthday – and still we don’t know who pulled the trigger.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Garry and what happened that night,” Sheriff Deryl Loar said of Chambliss, who worked as a deputy for more than 27 years and would’ve retired last October. “Our detectives and deputies are passionate about this case, and not a week goes by that we don’t talk about it.
“This one hits way too close to home, and we’re not letting go of this case until we make an arrest. There are aspects of the case that I can’t talk about right now, but I can tell you we have some significant pieces of evidence and we’re at a point where we believe we know who did it.
“Problem is, all we’ve got right now is forensics,” he added. “We’re getting closer and closer with the forensics, but we’d prefer to have a witness come forward.”
For those who don’t remember: It was shortly before 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 17, 2017, when gunfire erupted between the 4300 and 4400 block of 28th Avenue, where groups of people were gathered after a wake at the Mount Sinai church.
Apparently, a bottle was thrown at a passing car and the driver responded by firing gunshots, which prompted someone in one of the groups to return fire. Chambliss, known in the community as “Kool-Aid” because of his infectious smile, was standing near the road and, upon hearing the gunshots, yelled for people to get down before he was struck by one of the bullets, which detectives say was fired from 150 to 200 feet away.
So there were witnesses.
There was even an arrest.
Only hours after the shooting, deputies searching for the car involved in the incident arrested a 21-year-old man, charging him with “discharging a firearm from a vehicle,” which is a felony under Florida law.
That suspect was Makhail Chambliss, a distant relative of the deceased. However, detectives determined that the bullets he allegedly fired didn’t match the caliber of the bullet that killed the deputy.
But does Makhail Chambliss know who was in the crowd from which the fatal bullet was fired? What about all the other people on the street? Surely, somebody saw something.
“People are still talking about that night, but we need the right people to talk, and we need them to talk to the right people,” said Tony Brown, chairman of the local NAACP chapter. “Law enforcement doesn’t solve crimes. The community does.
“But the people in this community have a tendency to not say anything in these situations, so I’m not really surprised nobody has come forward.”
Is it a fear of retaliation from the shooter’s friends or relatives? Or might there be a deeply ingrained aversion to helping police send another young black man from the Gifford community to prison?
Both are possible deterrents, Brown said, but he believes it has more to do with the community’s lack of trust in the Sheriff’s Office, particularly concerning complaints about deputies.
“The sheriff can say and do all the right things, but that needs to permeate all segments of the agency’s hierarchy,” Brown said. “If I snitch on somebody in our community, you expect law enforcement to do something. Well, I should expect the same reaction when I tell you somebody is a bad cop.
“It comes down to trust, respect and relationships, and it needs to go both ways,” he added. “I’m not incriminating law enforcement. I’m not defending it, either. But I can understand the community’s reluctance.”
Brown also pointed to more than a half-dozen other unsolved murders in the Gifford community, where some cases pre-date the shooting of Garry Chambliss, who was a road deputy before transferring to the corrections division and becoming a transport deputy.
“Again, I’m not necessarily putting it on law enforcement, because we all have to work together,” Brown said, “but there are mothers in our community asking: ‘What about my child?’”
Still, Brown said he empathizes with the deputy’s daughters – Briyunna is 27, De’ja is 18 – who won’t feel any sense of closure until their father’s killer is caught.
Briyunna Chambliss, however, isn’t overly optimistic.
“If they were going to catch him, they would’ve caught him that night,” she said. “Sheriff Loar keeps in touch and checks to make sure we’re OK, and I believe they want to get the killer. But they don’t solve many murders in Gifford, so I can’t really say I’m surprised they haven’t arrested anyone.”
She said she has “no idea” who killed her father.
“I could be walking around with someone who killed my dad,” Briyunna Chambliss said. “It could be somebody I see all the time, somebody I talk to, or somebody I’ve never met. It wasn’t like my dad was the target. It was a stray bullet.
“Someone was shooting out in the open,” she added. “Anyone could’ve been hit. A child could’ve been killed. The only people that know who did it are the people who were there, and they’re not talking.”
Not yet, anyway, even with Treasure Coast Crime Stoppers offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest – an amount Brown, Garry Chambliss’ family and others in the Gifford community say should be greater.
Some prominent Gifford residents, who asked that their names not be revealed, want the Sheriff’s Office to seize on the two-year anniversary of Chambliss’ death to post and circulate fliers seeking the community’s help in solving the case.
Loar said he’s still hopeful someone eventually will offer to identify the shooter, though he doesn’t expect that to happen until one of the witnesses gets in trouble with the law and wants to make a deal.
In the meantime, he won’t risk botching the case by rushing into the arrest of the wrong person or arresting the right person without being confident he has provided prosecutors with enough evidence to convict the killer.
“It’s a tough case and we’ve got to be meticulous, but we’ve got a full-time detective working it, and I absolutely believe we will make an arrest,” Loar said. “It would be nice if someone came forward and gave us something to complement our forensics, but I understand why people might not want to do that.
“We’ll continue to work the case until it’s solved, with or without a witness,” he added. “It’s only a matter of time.”
It already has been two years, which is already too long – something I think about every time I drive past that street sign in Gifford, where 28th Avenue, between 41st and 45th streets, has been renamed: DEPUTY SHERIFF Garry Chambliss Avenue.
“People say it’s a shame it’s taking so long,” Briyunna Chambliss said. “If other people feel that way, you can imagine how my sister and I feel. We’re still grieving.”
