🚨 OUT ON BAIL IN FLORIDA — THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED

The Night That Began With a Traffic Stop

It was supposed to be a traffic stop.

A police officer approached a vehicle in downtown Orlando.

There was no way to know, from those first few moments, that the encounter would soon turn into a desperate fight for survival.

Two Orlando police officers were about to be critically wounded.

A suspect would flee through the city, steal another vehicle and disappear into the night.

Hours later, police would surround a hotel.

Guests would be evacuated.

A crisis negotiation team would attempt to convince a barricaded man to surrender.

And eventually, gunfire would erupt again.

By the time the sun came up, 28-year-old Daton Viel would be dead, two Orlando police officers would be recovering from serious gunshot wounds, and questions about how Viel had been on the streets in the first place would dominate the aftermath.

But there was another piece of the story that made the case even more complicated.

Weeks before the Orlando shooting, Viel had already been the subject of another police encounter.

He was out on bond.

He was wearing an electronic monitoring device.

Police had information indicating there were warrants for his arrest.

And when officers attempted to detain him near the University of Central Florida, body-camera footage captured what happened next.

He ran.

He made it back to his car.

And he drove away.

That footage would later become one of the most striking pieces of evidence in a case that ultimately stretched from a Florida courtroom to a university campus, from the streets of downtown Orlando to a hotel near Universal Orlando, and finally into a legal review of the officers who fired the fatal shots.

The question that followed was simple:

How did it get this far?

Chapter One: The Man Who Was Already Supposed to Be Found

Before the police shooting, before the hotel standoff and before the body-camera footage became national news, Daton Viel was already involved with the criminal justice system.

Court records and reporting showed that Viel had a lengthy criminal history.

In March 2023, he was arrested in Orange County in connection with allegations involving a 14-year-old girl. He faced charges including sexual battery, lewd or lascivious molestation and lewd or lascivious exhibition. According to reporting based on court records, investigators connected him to the case through DNA evidence and a photographic identification.

Viel was released from custody after posting a bond of roughly $125,000; records reported by News 6 put the amount at $125,250.

He was also under supervision related to previous cases.

And then came the electronic monitor.

The device was supposed to provide authorities with another layer of information about where he was.

Instead, according to records later reported by FOX 35 and News 6, Viel cut off the ankle monitor in June and left the residence where he had been staying.

An arrest warrant was subsequently issued.

But Viel was still not in custody.

And then, on June 30, something happened that was captured on camera.

Chapter Two: The Seven Minutes That Should Have Changed Everything

The location was near the University of Central Florida.

Police noticed a red Ford Fusion after its license plate was detected by campus systems.

Officers pulled the vehicle over.

At first, the encounter looked ordinary.

Viel spoke with officers.

They asked questions.

He provided identification.

The officers continued checking his information.

Then they discovered the warrant.

The tone changed.

According to body-camera footage later obtained by FOX 35, officers told Viel he was being detained.

He was instructed to put his hands behind his back.

Instead, he ran.

The footage shows him sprinting away from the officers.

At one point, he fell.

He got back up.

Officers shouted for him to stop.

One officer warned that he could be tased.

But Viel kept going.

He ran around a building.

And then something happened that would later become one of the most disturbing details in the entire timeline.

He returned to his vehicle.

He got inside.

And he drove away.

The trunk was reportedly still open from the traffic stop as the vehicle sped off.

An officer was heard telling him, in effect, that they would meet him at his house.

They never caught him there.

The UCF incident resulted in another warrant for fleeing and eluding.

But Viel remained free.

And the clock continued to run.

Chapter Three: A Red Ford Fusion Appears Again

Ten days later, on July 10, 2023, a man named Michael Williams Jr. was fatally shot in Miami-Dade County.

Investigators found surveillance footage that showed a red Ford Fusion leaving the area.

Authorities later connected the vehicle to Viel.

At that point, the story was no longer confined to Orlando.

The investigation stretched across Central and South Florida.

And the red Ford Fusion became a critical link.

Police were looking for Viel.

There were outstanding warrants.

There were questions about the ankle monitor.

There was now a vehicle associated with a Miami homicide investigation.

Yet on August 4, the red Ford Fusion appeared again.

This time, it was in downtown Orlando.

And two Orlando police officers saw it.

They had no idea they were approaching the beginning of a chain of events that would leave both of them critically wounded.

Chapter Four: The Downtown Encounter

It was late Friday night.

The officers were investigating the vehicle because of its connection to the Miami homicide.

Officer Andy Rodriguez approached a man standing near a silver vehicle.

The man was not Viel.

Rodriguez detained him while another officer, Kaley Powell, approached Viel.

According to body-camera footage later released and reviewed by News 6, Powell told Viel to relax and put his hands behind his back.

Viel asked why he was being detained.

Then he pulled away.

And he ran.

Again.

Rodriguez immediately pursued him.

“Foot pursuit,” he radioed.

The chase moved through the parking lot near North Garland Avenue and West Washington Street.

Viel ran toward an area near the Orlando Police Department's downtown substation.

Then, remarkably, he turned around.

He headed back toward his vehicle.

It was almost as though the June incident near UCF was repeating itself.

Police were chasing him.

He was trying to reach his car.

And the officers were trying to stop him before he could get away.

This time, however, the ending would be radically different.

Chapter Five: The Car

Viel reached his red Ford Fusion.

He got inside.

Officers rushed toward the vehicle.

Powell and Rodriguez deployed their Tasers.

The officers ordered Viel to get out.

The situation became a struggle around the driver's side of the car.

Then came the sound that changed everything.

Gunfire.

Multiple shots erupted.

The officers immediately ran in different directions.

Rodriguez headed toward the police substation.

Powell moved in the opposite direction.

Their body cameras captured the chaos.

Rodriguez called out over the radio:

“Shots fired!”

Then another transmission cut through the confusion.

Rodriguez was wounded.

He was calling for help.

Officers rushed toward him.

He told them he had been shot.

Meanwhile, Powell was also wounded.

Her body-camera footage captured her moving away from the initial gunfire.

She was bleeding.

She was still conscious.

And she was trying to survive.

News 6 later reported that Powell had been struck in her arms and torso area, while Rodriguez suffered gunshot wounds to his upper chest and torso.

But the most frightening part of the encounter had not yet happened.

Chapter Six: “I’ve Been Shot”

Imagine being a police officer and realizing that you have been shot.

Now imagine knowing that the person who shot you is still somewhere nearby.

That was the reality facing Powell.

Her body camera captured her shouting that she had been shot.

Blood was visible on her arms.

Other officers were arriving.

But the suspect was still moving.

And then he came back.

According to the later News 6 reconstruction, more than 20 seconds after the first burst of gunfire, Viel ran toward Powell while holding a firearm.

He reportedly demanded the location of a key before firing again in her direction.

Powell continued moving away.

Another officer encountered her.

He asked if she had been hit.

She answered that she had been shot.

The officer immediately began calling for assistance.

Elsewhere in the parking lot, Rodriguez was receiving emergency treatment from other officers.

The scene had transformed from a traffic investigation into a life-and-death emergency.

Two officers were wounded.

The suspect was still armed.

And he had escaped.

Chapter Seven: The Carjacking

After the shooting, Viel fled.

Police said he carjacked another vehicle and disappeared.

The two wounded officers were transported to the hospital.

Both were critically injured.

But they survived.

The city now faced an entirely different problem.

The suspect was somewhere in Orlando.

He was believed to be armed.

He had already shot two police officers.

And police knew the vehicle he had been driving was connected to a homicide investigation in Miami.

The search intensified.

Officers from multiple agencies became involved.

And then, sometime around 6 a.m. Saturday morning, investigators located Viel.

He was at a Holiday Inn on Caravan Court near Universal Orlando.

But he was not coming out.

Chapter Eight: The Hotel Goes Into Lockdown

For hotel guests, the morning probably began like any other.

Then police arrived.

The hotel was evacuated.

Officers surrounded the building.

The suspect had barricaded himself inside a room.

The manhunt had moved from the streets to a hotel.

And now police had to find a way to end the situation without putting hotel guests or officers in greater danger.

A crisis negotiation team attempted to convince Viel to surrender peacefully.

The strategy was different from the chaotic traffic stop of the previous night.

There was time.

There was distance.

There were officers surrounding the building.

There was an opportunity to communicate.

But according to authorities, Viel refused to surrender.

The standoff continued.

Guests waited outside.

Police prepared for the possibility that negotiations would fail.

And eventually, they did.

Chapter Nine: The Final Confrontation

The situation escalated after Viel fired toward SWAT officers.

The exact circumstances were later reconstructed through investigative evidence.

According to the State Attorney's Office, officers eventually breached the room.

Viel emerged armed with a firearm.

SWAT officers opened fire.

Viel was struck and killed.

News 6 later reported that SWAT officers fired nearly 80 rounds during the hotel confrontation, after negotiations failed and Viel fired at officers. His body was found near an ice machine at the end of a hallway, with a black Glock pistol nearby.

The manhunt was over.

But the investigation was just beginning.

Chapter Ten: Two Officers Fighting to Survive

While the standoff was unfolding, Officers Powell and Rodriguez were in the hospital.

They had been shot multiple times.

The shooting could have ended much differently.

Both officers survived.

They would spend time recovering from their injuries.

The department was dealing with the emotional shock of seeing two officers critically wounded in a single encounter.

For the public, however, another question was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Why had Viel been on the streets?

Why had he been out on bond?

Why had he been wearing an ankle monitor?

Why had he been able to cut it off?

Why had he escaped from UCF police weeks earlier?

And why had authorities not caught him before the downtown traffic stop?

Those questions became a major part of the aftermath.

Chapter Eleven: The Bond Question

The case immediately triggered debate about Florida's pretrial system.

Viel had been released on a bond of approximately $125,000 after his March 2023 arrest.

State Attorney Monique Worrell said the bond decision was made by the court and argued that prosecutors had legal constraints concerning pretrial detention.

News reports also documented that Viel had been on probation and that authorities had sought action relating to his supervision.

The precise legal history was complicated because the different cases came from different jurisdictions and dates.

That distinction matters.

A headline can make a complicated court record look simple.

The actual timeline was not.

According to records later reported by News 6, the Florida Department of Corrections attempted to address a probation violation after Viel's March arrest. A defense argument maintained that the alleged conduct in the new case predated the probation term in the earlier case, and the probation-violation proceeding did not keep him in custody.

The state attorney's office subsequently defended the bond decision, while acknowledging that the case had raised difficult questions.

Those questions became even louder after the shooting of Powell and Rodriguez.

Chapter Twelve: The Ankle Monitor

Perhaps no detail captured the public's attention more than the ankle monitor.

The device was supposed to track Viel.

But records indicated that he removed it.

FOX 35 reported that the monitor had been cut off in June.

An officer attempted to locate him afterward.

He was not found at the residence where he had been staying.

Then came the June 30 encounter at UCF.

Officers found him.

They attempted to detain him.

He ran.

He reached his car.

And he escaped again.

That sequence became extremely significant after the August shooting because the public could actually watch it happen.

The body-camera video was not a theory.

It was a record of an earlier encounter.

The officers had him in front of them.

They knew there was a warrant.

They attempted to take him into custody.

And yet he got away.

Weeks later, two different officers would encounter him again.

This time, they would be shot.

Chapter Thirteen: The Body Camera Becomes the Witness

Body-camera footage has a strange power.

It can make an event feel immediate even years later.

The camera does not know what will happen.

It simply records.

In the UCF footage, you can hear officers talking to Viel.

You can see the traffic stop unfold.

You can watch the moment the encounter changes.

Then you see him run.

You see officers pursue him.

And you see him get into the red Ford Fusion and escape.

Months later, additional body-camera footage from the Orlando shooting provided another perspective.

This time, there was no escape without violence.

The footage showed the officers approaching.

It showed the pursuit.

It showed the struggle at the vehicle.

Then the gunfire.

Then the officers running for cover.

Then the desperate calls for medical help.

News 6's 2025 investigation brought together newly released body-camera footage and investigative documents to reconstruct the encounter in greater detail.

And suddenly, the title “Out on Bail in Florida” was no longer just a headline.

It was the beginning of a much larger timeline.

Chapter Fourteen: What Happened to the Two Officers?

The story did not end at the hospital.

Officer Rodriguez eventually left the hospital.

Officer Powell also recovered.

The department reported that both officers were expected to recover, although they faced a long road afterward.

Their survival was one of the few pieces of good news to emerge from the case.

But the emotional impact remained.

An officer being shot during a traffic stop is every police department's nightmare.

The officers had approached a vehicle because they believed they were dealing with a person connected to a serious investigation.

Instead, they encountered a man who, according to investigators, was willing to use deadly force to escape.

The body-camera footage makes the transition painfully clear.

There is a normal conversation.

Then movement.

Then a chase.

Then gunfire.

Then screams for help.

Chapter Fifteen: The Investigation Into the Police Shooting

After Viel was killed, investigators had to determine whether the officers who fired at him had acted lawfully.

This is where the story took another turn.

A police shooting cannot simply be judged by watching the final few seconds.

Investigators examined evidence surrounding the hotel confrontation.

The State Attorney's Office later presented the case to a grand jury.

On July 31, 2024, the grand jury considered the evidence involving the six Orlando police officers who had used deadly force during the fatal encounter.

The grand jury returned a “no true bill” for each officer.

That meant the officers would not face criminal charges arising from the shooting.

The State Attorney's Office said the case was closed and that the grand jury declined to issue additional recommendations concerning the use of force.

That conclusion is important because it represents the formal outcome of the criminal review.

Chapter Sixteen: The Story Behind the Headline

“Out on Bail in Florida.”

Those words immediately make the reader want to know what happened next.

But the real story is more complicated than a single sentence.

Viel was released on bond after his arrest.

He was subject to supervision.

An electronic monitor was involved.

The monitor was later removed.

An arrest warrant followed.

He was encountered by UCF police.

He fled.

He escaped.

A vehicle later associated with him appeared in a Miami homicide investigation.

Then, weeks later, Orlando police found the vehicle.

Two officers approached.

The suspect ran.

The officers pursued.

The suspect returned to his vehicle.

The officers tried to stop him.

And the gunfire began.

That chain of events is what makes this case so extraordinary.

The August shooting did not happen in isolation.

There were warning signs and earlier encounters documented in the record.

But knowing what happened later does not necessarily mean every person involved knew all of the same information at each earlier moment.

That distinction is important when reconstructing a complicated criminal case.

Chapter Seventeen: A Case That Crossed Three Different Worlds

The Viel case crossed several parts of the justice system.

There was the criminal court system handling the earlier charges.

There was the Department of Corrections and supervision process.

There was local law enforcement.

There were UCF police officers.

There was the Miami-Dade homicide investigation.

There was the Orlando Police Department.

There was the SWAT response.

There were prosecutors.

And eventually there was a grand jury.

Each agency had a different role.

Each piece of the case unfolded at a different time.

That is one reason the story became so difficult for the public to follow.

One headline focused on the bond.

Another focused on the police shooting.

Another focused on the ankle monitor.

Another focused on the Miami homicide.

Another focused on the hotel.

And later, new body-camera footage brought the public back to the original traffic stop.

Put all of those pieces together, however, and a much clearer timeline emerges.

Chapter Eighteen: The Night Orlando Held Its Breath

The Holiday Inn confrontation became the final act.

Police surrounded the hotel.

Guests were evacuated.

The suspect was barricaded.

Negotiators tried to communicate.

SWAT prepared.

Then shots were fired.

Officers returned fire.

And the man police had been searching for since the previous night was dead.

For everyone inside the hotel, the nightmare was over.

For the officers involved, however, the investigation would continue for months.

The body-camera footage would eventually be reviewed.

Witnesses would be interviewed.

Weapons would be examined.

The sequence of shots would be reconstructed.

And prosecutors would ultimately decide whether criminal charges were appropriate for the officers involved.

They were not.

Chapter Nineteen: What the Cameras Cannot Show

There is one important limitation to every body-camera video.

A camera shows what happened in front of it.

It does not automatically explain everything.

It cannot show what an officer was told through another radio channel.

It cannot show what a witness saw from another location.

It cannot show every piece of evidence that investigators later collected.

And it cannot tell the viewer what someone was thinking.

That is why the later investigative record matters.

In this case, the body-camera footage is incredibly important.

But it is only one part of the evidence.

The later News 6 investigation used footage and documents to reconstruct the encounter, while the grand-jury process considered the broader evidence concerning the officers' use of deadly force.

Watching the video is therefore not the same thing as knowing everything that happened.

The footage gives us a window.

The investigation provides the wider frame.

Chapter Twenty: The Question That Keeps Coming Back

There is a question at the heart of the entire story:

What if Viel had been taken into custody on June 30?

It is a natural question.

He had been stopped.

Officers discovered a warrant.

He ran.

He escaped.

A new warrant followed.

Weeks later, two officers were shot.

But this question must be treated as a hypothetical.

We cannot know what would have happened if that June encounter had ended differently.

What we do know is that the June 30 body-camera footage shows officers attempting to detain Viel and Viel escaping in his vehicle.

What we also know is that on August 4, Orlando officers encountered him again and were critically wounded.

The sequence is documented.

The hypothetical outcome is not.

That difference matters.

Chapter Twenty-One: Two Officers Who Came Home

Perhaps the most important part of this story is often overshadowed by the suspect.

Officer Kaley Powell survived.

Officer Andy Rodriguez survived.

They went to work that night expecting another police shift.

Instead, they were shot multiple times.

Their body cameras captured the chaos.

The radio captured their calls for help.

Their fellow officers rushed toward them.

And their survival became a reminder that a violent encounter does not always end with the death of the people who are shot.

Sometimes there is a long recovery afterward.

A long physical recovery.

A long emotional recovery.

And a long process of understanding what happened.

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Case Is Closed, But the Footage Remains

In August 2024, the State Attorney's Office announced that the six officers involved in the fatal hotel shooting would not face criminal charges.

The grand jury had returned no true bills.

The criminal case concerning the officers' use of deadly force was closed.

But the footage remains.

The June video remains.

The August body-camera footage remains.

The radio recordings remain.

The reports remain.

And every time someone watches them, they see the case from another perspective.

The June footage shows the missed opportunity to arrest Viel.

The August footage shows the traffic stop that became a shooting.

The hotel footage and investigative records show the final confrontation.

Together, they tell a story that is far more complicated than any single headline.

The Final Moments

Think back to the beginning.

A man is out on bond.

An ankle monitor is supposed to track him.

The monitor disappears.

Police try to arrest him.

He runs.

A warrant follows.

A red Ford Fusion appears in another investigation.

Weeks later, police find the car.

Two officers approach.

The man runs.

He returns to the vehicle.

The officers move in.

And then everything changes.

Gunfire.

Two officers wounded.

A suspect fleeing.

A stolen vehicle.

A hotel.

An evacuation.

A barricaded room.

Negotiations.

More gunfire.

And finally, a SWAT team ends the search.

It all happened within a matter of weeks.

But the consequences lasted far longer.

Conclusion: More Than Just a Viral Bodycam Video

The Daton Viel case is often reduced to a few dramatic images.

A suspect running from police.

Officers being shot.

A hotel surrounded by SWAT vehicles.

A body-camera recording.

A headline about someone being out on bail.

But behind those images is a complicated timeline.

There was an earlier criminal case.

There was a bond decision.

There was electronic monitoring.

There was a missed arrest.

There was an additional warrant.

There was a Miami homicide investigation.

There was a downtown Orlando traffic stop.

There were two wounded police officers.

There was a massive manhunt.

There was a hotel evacuation.

There was a standoff.

And there was a final gunfight.

The later grand-jury review determined that the six officers involved in the fatal shooting at the hotel would not face criminal charges.

The two Orlando officers shot during the initial encounter survived.

And the body-camera footage ultimately gave the public a much closer look at the moments that turned a police investigation into a desperate fight for survival.

But perhaps the most unsettling part of the story is not what happened inside the hotel.

It is what happened weeks earlier.

A police camera captured Viel running from officers near UCF.

He had been found.

Officers had identified a warrant.

They tried to take him into custody.

He ran to his car.

And he escaped.

At the time, it was another police incident.

A few weeks later, it looked very different.

Because the next time police encountered him, two officers were shot.

That is why the footage deserves to be watched in context.

Not simply for the gunfire.

Not simply for the chase.

But to understand the chain of events that led from a bond release to a June police encounter, from that encounter to an August traffic stop, and from that traffic stop to a hotel siege that ended with a man's death.

Sometimes the most important part of a body-camera video is not the final second.

It is everything that happened before it.