Suspect arrested in killing of Palm Beach County Deputy

A suspect has been arrested in the case of a corrections deputy who was shot and killed in south Florida last week.

Kevin Benette, 32, was arrested on Thursday and faces charges of first-degree murder, according to Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Palm Beach County Sheriff.

Palm Beach County Corrections Deputy Basil Powell was “targeted and ambushed while returning home” last week in Belle Glade. 

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Security footage recovered from the home shows Powell and his 5-year-old daughter exiting their vehicle and walking to the front door. It is at that time that a gunman approaches from about 25 feet behind and ambushes him. 

“As he exited his vehicle, he was immediately fired upon,” the sheriff’s office said. 

Powell then pulls his daughter close and shields her with his body, according to court documents.

“It’s a family here so when we lose somebody that’s a part of the agency, everybody takes it pretty hard,” said Bradshaw.

He says the suspect is “not a stranger to violence,” and listed a lengthy list of past charges ranging from battery, aggravated battery, burglary, theft, aggravated domestic stalking, domestic violence by strangulation and false imprisonment.

“When you have somebody like this that has violent tendencies, they don’t care. It doesn’t matter to them. Looking around the United States, how many law enforcement officers get killed just walking up to a car, you know. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. These are just violent people, and they do violent things,” Bradshaw said Thursday.

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Bradshaw says the motive is clear.

“The girlfriend of (Powell) is a prior girlfriend of the suspect,” Bradshaw said. “I think that he was extremely agitated over that and upset and that’s why he decided to kill our deputy. … The motive’s not hard to figure out here.”

During the press conference, the sheriff took time to praise the detectives involved in making the arrest.

“They worked around the clock,” Bradshaw said. “A lot of them didn’t even go to sleep. They got great forensic evidence. So I got to give my hats off to them. It was a difficult case to start with.”

He says this is the fourth deputy they have lost in less than 90 days.