He was shot by Florida police. Now he’s charged with assault on an officer

A former Key West man who was shot by police on his houseboat last year during a welfare check was arrested on charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and attempted arson, police said.

Adam Bruce Bounds, 43, who at the time of the shooting lived in Cow Key Channel, was arrested in North Fort Myers on Thursday.

He is accused of dumping gasoline on his head and holding a cigarette lighter while threatening to kill officers and himself on his boat in October.

Bounds is expected to be returned to Monroe County to face the charges, said Adam Linhardt, the spokesman for the Monroe sheriff’s office.

Bounds remained in the Lee County jail on Friday on $75,000 bond.

Police say officers went to Bounds’ houseboat on Oct. 15, 2019, to conduct a welfare check after Bounds had called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Tallahassee office and threatened to kill himself.

Bounds had called FWC over having missed a court date for owning a derelict vessel, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay told U.S. 1 Radio after the shooting.

While on the phone to Tallahassee, Bounds threatened suicide, and the local FWC was contacted. They went out with sheriff’s deputies to check on him.

When police arrived on his boat, officers said Bounds was inside pouring gas over his head while holding a cigarette lighter.

Bounds threatened to light the gasoline and kill everyone on the boat, Linhardt said, and ignored police orders to drop the can and the lighter.

An FWC officer drew his weapon and shot Bounds multiple times, at least once in the abdomen, according to photos and posts by Bounds on Facebook.

In early March, the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office began reviewing a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to decide whether to charge the officer with a crime.

“No officer has been charged in the incident,” state attorney’s spokesman Larry Kahn said Friday. “The incident is being reviewed.”

Bounds, in posts on his Facebook page, has said he has been harassed by law enforcement.

After the shooting, Bounds posted, “Cowboys are way out of control and they need to be put on a leash, a very short leash.”

Gwen Filosa

Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was part of the staff at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.