Tunnell placed a call to McKeithen's cellphone at 9:35 that morning.

Seven minutes later, Tunnell called the Bay County Sheriff's Office main line and had a nine-minute conversation with someone at the department.

Early the following morning, Tunnell and a key aide to Gov. Jeb Bush urgently debated by e-mail how best to release the 30- to 40-minute video that Tunnell had fought hard to keep private. In a 7:15 a.m. e-mail to Tunnell, the aide, Bush chief of staff Mark Kaplan, all but pleaded with Tunnell to release the controversial video in the state capital, not in Bay County.

"The press is already challenging FDLE's choice of location for this morning's press conference, " Kaplan wrote. "They are saying that you regularly investigate officer shootings and do not make an announcement from the officer's department.

"Your integrity is being challenged unfairly, and you are making it too easy for those who wish to allege that FDLE is part of some conspiracy."

Tunnell ignored Kaplan's advice, saying that if his agency were to "bow to the political or media pressure, " it would empower his critics.

The videotape, released later that morning on Feb. 17 to a throng of reporters from across the nation, told a messier story than the official, sanitized narrative.

But in those hours before the tape was released, the state law enforcement chief and former Bay County sheriff was sure he could handle the criticism that McKeithen had predicted.

"There is simply no opportunity that would allow for any alleged 'cover-up, ' " Tunnell said in his e-mail response to Kaplan. "Not that there was any effort or intent to do so."

Miami Herald staff writer Matthew I. Pinzur contributed to this report.