Video shows hotel shootout between man and police officers in Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale police released bodycam footage showing when officers say they exchanged gunfire with a man at a Holiday Inn Express hotel earlier this month.
Karl Chludinsky, 46, had falsely claimed in a text to 911 that he had killed someone inside his hotel room at Holiday Inn Express, 1500 SE 17th Street Causeway, in Fort Lauderdale on the morning of March 21, police said. The Margate man had also said his wife was being raped, which was not true, and that he would kill anyone who approached his room.
When officers ordered him to come out of his sixth-floor hotel room, police say Chludinsky opened the door with a cellphone in one hand and a gun in the other.
“Let me see your hands!” officers shouted several times.
The video shows when Chludinsky lowers his hand holding what appears to be a gun, followed by the officers shooting at him multiple times. The door closed as police shot through it.
“Gun! Gun! Gun!” an officer shouted.
After a brief pause, Chludinsky was heard yelling and the shootout resumed. Officers said he had shot at them.
“Hey, I’m hit,” Officer Jack Dicristofalo tells the others after a bullet struck his vest.
READ MORE: Man who shot Fort Lauderdale cop had history of abuse, mental health issues: sources
When officers entered the room, they found Chludinsky dead. No one else was in the room, police said.
Police said Thursday his cause of death is yet to be determined.
Dicristofalo was taken to the hospital and later released. Another officer had minor injuries but he wasn’t shot.
Police placed Dicristofalo and two other officers on administrative leave as the department’s internal affairs unit and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates.
Chludinsky was likely in the midst of a mental health episode when he was killed, his ex-wife told the Miami Herald after the shooting.
“This is what he does,” Victoria Loriell Vaughn said. “He has crazy hallucinations where he thinks people are coming to try to kill him.”
Vaughn said she knew something like this would happen.
“It’s very sad to see anybody go through this,” she said, “but he clearly never got the help he needed.”
Miami Herald staff reporter Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.
