The second Indian River County Sheriff’s deputy who was shot in the eviction procedure at the Bermuda Club development near Wabasso was released from hospital Sunday afternoon. The Friday morning shooting killed another sheriff’s deputy veteran, along with a local locksmith.
A group of sheriff’s office employees cheered and clapped as a nurse wheeled Deputy Florentino “Tino” Arizpe out into the lobby of the HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce. Arizpe was released after doctors determined he had healed sufficiently from a gunshot wound in the shoulder suffered in the eviction procedure gone wrong.
Arizpe will continue his recovery at home, sheriff’s officials said. In the announcement of Arizpe’s release from hospital, the sheriff’s office said in a post on the Facebook social media site that “today brought a much-needed moment of relief and gratitude.”
The shooter, Michael Halberstam, 37, who had been shot multiple times when sheriff’s deputies returned fire, had also been taken to Lawnwood for emergency surgery but died of his injuries on Saturday.
David Long, the locksmith who accompanied the deputies during the eviction, was also shot. Deputies said Long died Sunday at the hospital.
Sgt. Terri Sweeting-Mashkow, who was posthumously promoted from deputy to sergeant, was killed when she, along with Arizpe and Deputy Gary Farless, tried to serve an eviction notice on Halberstam from his mother who owns the house where he was living. Sweeting-Mashkow was 47 years old.
The shooting took place at the Bermuda Club in the 1100 block of Governors Way. The neighborhood is located in a beachside, gated community near Wabasso and north of Indian River Shores.
Sweeting-Mashkow worked at the sheriff’s office for 25 years. Farless was not injured in the shooting.
