Wife of man shot, killed by deputies speaks

DELTONA, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Magaly Escanio thought it was odd she hadn't heard from her husband Jose Flores on Thursday night.  She went to church, and then her phone started ringing.

"In my heart i had a feeling there was something going on," she said.

She got the news from deputies -- her husband of nine years was dead.  

"He wasn't an aggressive person.  He wouldn't do no harm to nobody," she explained.

Several deputies were called to a Deltona gas station by a concerned employee.  The employee told a 911 dispatcher there was a man who had been in the bathroom for a lengthy time.

"We have a guy in our bathroom. I'm not sure what's going on with him, but he's in the bathroom for almost an hour-and-a-half now, and he's basically running around the stalls," the employee told the dispatcher.

Deputies said Flores was running around the bathroom stalls with no shirt on, and they observed what was described as drug paraphernalia on the sink. A deputy said he attempted to calm Flores down and take him into custody, but,before the deputies could secure him, they say Flores got ahold of one of the deputy's tasers.
That deputy grabbed his gun and fired.

Sheriff Mike Chitwood supported the deputy's actions, saying, "You can not challenge law enforcement. If you obey the commands, everything ends peacefully."

Flores' wife says her husband has been battling with drug addiction for years. 

"He used it in the past, like you know, like for a long time," she said.  "By the end of 2015, I noticed he started using it. Like non-stop. Until now, non-stop. I told him you need help."

She said he spent a lot of time in his home-built barber shop, writing bible passages on the wall, and even recently went to see a psychiatrist about the demons he faced.  Now, his wife is left in tears, trying to figure out how to tell their three children, their father is dead.  

The deputy involved in the shooting was also involved in a fatal Deltona shooting in March.