More than a year after Tri-Marea Charles was shot and killed by Titusville police on February 7, 2025, the most basic evidence in the case remains out of reach for the public and the family still searching for answers. Despite repeated requests, the full, unedited body camera footage from that night has never been released, leaving many residents questioning the transparency of the Titusville Police Department and the leadership of Chief John Lau.
In the months following the shooting, the department did release video to the public. At first it appeared to be a step toward transparency, but the presentation quickly raised new concerns. Rather than releasing the raw footage from the night of the shooting, the department presented an edited video that included clips from unrelated calls and incidents in the neighborhood dating back months. The presentation resembled a timeline built to tell a story about the area rather than a straightforward release of evidence from a fatal police encounter.
Community members and several media outlets immediately questioned the decision. If the goal was transparency, they asked, why not simply release the footage from the night of the shooting itself?
After the criticism intensified, the department released additional video, but that footage consisted only of selected portions from a single officer’s body camera, not the full recordings from every officer present. Many residents believed at that point that the complete footage had finally been made public. It had not.
More than a year later, the complete recordings from the incident remain withheld.
A Mother Still Searching for the Truth
For Samantha Charles, the mother of Tri-Marea Charles, the past year has been defined by grief and a relentless effort to understand what happened to her son.
The night of the shooting, she did not receive the type of formal notification families typically expect after a fatal police encounter. Instead, she learned about the incident through phone calls from members of the community and rushed to Parrish Medical Center, desperate to find out whether her son was alive.
What she encountered there, according to her account, felt less like a moment of compassion and more like an interrogation. She says she was treated like a suspect rather than a grieving parent, was not allowed to bring anyone inside the hospital with her for support, and struggled to get clear information about what had happened. Officers were present, but she says no one clearly told her that her son had died.
By the time the reality became clear, his body had already been removed. The moment that should have been handled with dignity instead left her asking a question that no parent should ever have to ask, where is my son?
In the months that followed, she hired attorneys and filed public records requests, spending thousands of dollars in an effort to obtain information about the shooting. The most important evidence, the full body camera footage, still has not been released.
The Video That Shaped a Narrative
The way the department chose to present the video has become one of the most controversial aspects of the case.
Instead of releasing the raw body camera footage from the officers involved, the video released under Chief John Lau’s authorization included edited segments from previous police calls in the neighborhood, spliced together to create context leading up to the shooting. Critics say the presentation appeared designed to frame the situation in a particular way rather than simply allowing the public to see the events of that night as they happened.
What made the presentation even more unusual was the way the footage was narrated. The video released by the department included audio commentary from Chief Lau, who walked viewers through the footage and offered his interpretation of what he believed was happening in the video. Law enforcement agencies occasionally release body camera footage after critical incidents, but it is far less common for a police chief to narrate the footage and guide the public through a specific interpretation of events.
For many in the community, the presentation raised concerns that the department was not simply releasing evidence but attempting to shape how that evidence would be understood.
One moment from the video quickly became the center of public reaction. As Tri-Marea Charles lay mortally wounded after being shot multiple times, he can be heard saying “I fucked up.” In the department’s presentation, the statement was framed as an admission of guilt.
But for many viewers watching the video, the moment looked very different. What they saw was a young man being shot multiple times in the back, collapsing to the ground, and struggling in his final moments.
Adding to the controversy, Samantha Charles had previously viewed footage at the police department with an attorney before the public release, but according to her account the video she was shown did not include the moment where her son’s final words were heard. She says the first time she ever heard her son speak those words was not in the private viewing with investigators, but the following day when the department released the public video.
By that time the footage had already been edited and delayed before its release, and the version shown to the public differed from what the family says they had previously been shown.
For Charles’ family and many in the community, the decision to include the moment in a narrated and edited presentation without releasing the full body camera footage raised a deeper question, whether the video was meant to show the public what happened, or to convince them what to believe about it.
The Midnight Phone Call
Days after the shooting, another incident further deepened tensions between the Titusville Police Department and members of the community.
According to several residents, Officer Tyler “TJ” Wright contacted individuals known locally as community leaders in Titusville during a late-night phone call that quickly became the subject of controversy. Those contacted were not the people who had posted about the shooting themselves. Instead, they say Wright reached out to them because of their influence in the community and attempted to pressure them to intervene, urging others to remove posts circulating online that the department did not want shared.
During the call, Wright allegedly warned that “the hornet’s nest has been stirred,” a statement several people on the call later described as an attempt to intimidate them into intervening with others.
The department later claimed the call was made in response to concerns that someone had posted the home address and family information of the officer involved in the shooting. But the posts that were spreading widely across social media at the time were something else entirely.
What had gone viral was an article about Officer Baez, the officer identified as the one who shot Tri-Marea Charles, from his previous employment with the Cocoa Police Department. The article detailed a prior shooting in which Baez fired through his patrol car windshield at a man who had called 911, believing the man was holding a weapon when he was actually holding a cellphone.
That earlier case quickly became part of the public discussion following the Charles shooting. Residents began questioning why the Titusville Police Department had hired an officer with a controversial shooting in his background and whether his disciplinary history had been thoroughly examined before he joined the department.
As those questions circulated, additional information about Baez’s internal affairs history also began surfacing, including reports of disciplinary issues and concerns related to evidence handling.
For the residents who received Wright’s call, the message they say they heard was clear. Rather than addressing the questions being raised about the officer involved in the shooting, the department appeared focused on stopping the conversation about it.
Several individuals who participated in the call later filed formal complaints with the department. The internal affairs investigation that followed did little to resolve the controversy. Former Palm Bay Deputy Chief Lance Fisher, who reviewed the findings, later described the report as highly unusual, stating that it appeared to focus more on discrediting the complainants than examining the officer’s actions.
For many in the community, the incident raised a troubling question. If citizens discussing a police shooting online could receive late night calls from officers warning them about the consequences of those conversations, what did that say about the department’s willingness to tolerate criticism?
A Raise Amid the Controversy
Just five days after the shooting, another decision drew attention.
On February 12, 2025, then city manager Scott Larese approved a new contract and pay increase for Chief John Lau. The move came months before Lau’s existing contract was scheduled to expire and shortly after Larese had announced plans to retire.
For critics of the department’s handling of the case, the timing raised concerns. At the very moment when the department was facing growing scrutiny over a fatal police shooting, the chief overseeing the department received a new contract and a raise.
A Memorial Thrown Away
Weeks after the shooting, another incident added to the pain felt by the family and supporters of Tri-Marea Charles.
A memorial created in his honor was reportedly discarded by the Titusville Housing Authority and placed in a trash container. For members of the community who had gathered to remember Charles, the act felt like yet another example of the lack of compassion they believe has surrounded the case.
A Department Facing Questions
The controversy surrounding the shooting of Tri-Marea Charles has become a flashpoint in a broader debate about transparency and accountability within the Titusville Police Department.
The edited video presentation, the delay in releasing full body camera footage, the late-night phone call from an officer to residents discussing the case, and the experiences described by Charles’ mother have all contributed to a growing sense among many residents that the department’s handling of the case has deepened mistrust rather than resolved it.
More than a year later, the questions remain.
Why has the full body camera footage never been released?
Why was the first video presented as a narrative rather than raw evidence?
Why were citizens contacted in the middle of the night over social media posts about the shooting?
For the family of Tri-Marea Charles, those questions are not political; they are personal. They are the questions that stand between them and the truth about what happened to their son.