When Charlotte County Sheriff’s Sgt. Elio Diaz was killed at a Port Charlotte gas station on Dec. 15, 2024, his fellow deputies used video from cameras at the convenience store to quickly learn what happened, then used license-plate readers to track down his assailant who was a few miles away.
A still image from a convenience store’s security camera shows AJ Mostyn in the seconds before he fatally shot Charlotte County Sheriff’s Sgt. Elio Diaz, sheriff’s officials have said. Mostyn was tracked down and killed by deputies a few miles away, within an hour of the shooting.
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Deputies closed in on the man within an hour of the shooting as he was sitting in his pickup behind a Popeye’s restaurant.
The man refused to surrender, and a deputy fired, killing him, officials said.
Law enforcement agencies around the region are using images from cameras to quickly collect information in dangerous “hot-pursuit” situations.
But cameras are increasingly providing investigators with clues and evidence in all kinds of cases, including assaults and thefts.
Images come from cameras mounted at road intersections, including license-plate readers, but also from front-door cameras, dash-mounted cameras, security cameras at stores, homes and construction sites, and strategically placed trail cameras designed for hunters.
A still image from a deputy’s body camera photo shows the officer removing a rifle from the lap of a man who officials say shot and killed Sgt. Elio Diaz in 2025.
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Here are some recent examples of cases that include camera footage as evidence:
In June, a 53-year-old Venice man was charged with witness tampering and burglary with domestic battery. Doorbell camera footage showed him forcing entry into a home, court records show.A 23-year-old Sarasota man was charged in May with lewd and lascivious battery on a victim older than 12 and younger than 18, a second-degree felony. Detectives tried to get security camera footage from the convenience store where the alleged incident happened, but learned the recordings are overwritten every 15 days. However, footage from another nearby business showed the suspect’s truck at the convenience store on the dates the teen reported meeting him, records show.In July, a 63-year-old Punta Gorda man was charged with dumping trash on private property, a felony. With permission from a property owner where dumping had become a problem, Charlotte County Detective Philip Traniello had set up a trail camera. When Traniello found a large pile of waste there, he reviewed the camera footage and watched a pickup with a trailer dump a load of debris. He tracked the truck to the owner, who reportedly admitted to dumping the materials.Charlotte County Sheriff’s investigators used trail camera footage from a construction site and license plate readers to track two men suspected of stealing copper wire in July. Watching license-plate cameras then led detectives to the recycling center where the men had just sold the copper for scrap, according to court documents.The men were taken into custody at the center.In March, Sarasota County Sheriff’s detectives made an arrest in the killing of Patrick Warrick in South Venice following a year-long investigation. Detectives used several cameras to help identify the suspect, including a home surveillance video that recorded six audible gunshots; a camera at a shopping plaza captured a man with “a messy bowl cut and beard” and distinctive “gait” walking through near the time of the homicide; and footage from the Sarasota County South Courthouse and from the nearby Wawa, where the suspect bought a beer before heading in the direction of the homicide, reports show. Investigators learned from a Venice Police officer’s previous body camera footage that the suspect owned a pistol.