Suspect Fights Officer, Grabs His Gun, and Leaves Him Shot in the Hand

A trespassing call at a Tallahassee motel on March 8, 2024 began with officers giving a guest time to collect his belongings and leave. Less than two hours later, the same man was back on the property. What followed was a violent struggle captured by body-worn camera in which an officer used a TASER and baton, the suspect fought with him on the ground, the officer’s service handgun came out of its holster, and the weapon discharged while the two men struggled over it.

The officer was shot in the hand. The suspect, identified by Tallahassee Police as 36-year-old Willis Adams, ended up with the officer’s handgun and moved away from the injured officer before another officer confronted him. Police said Adams then reached for the second officer’s firearm as well. Off-duty deputies from the Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office and Leon County Sheriff’s Office stopped to assist, and Adams was ultimately taken into custody.

The original title supplied with the footage says, “He Took the Officer’s Taser… Then It Got Worse.” The video and official records establish something different. Adams did not take the officer’s TASER in the decisive struggle. The officer deployed the TASER twice, but police said it was ineffective. Adams then fought the officer and gained control of the officer’s service handgun. Because the workflow requires verified facts to override an inaccurate title, the title and article below reflect the handgun rather than repeating the TASER claim.

Tallahassee Police publicly confirmed the incident, location, suspect, and basic sequence. Local reporting based on the probable-cause affidavit adds details about the initial trespass call and the struggle. Court reporting from the days immediately after the arrest shows Adams was charged with attempted murder of a law-enforcement officer, held without bond, assigned a public defender, and entered a not-guilty plea. Searches for a later verified disposition did not produce a reliable final judgment or sentencing record, so this article does not invent a conviction or sentence.

A Motel Call That Initially Ended With a Warning

The incident began at the Loyalty Inn at 2738 North Monroe Street in Tallahassee. According to the probable-cause affidavit described by WCTV and the Tallahassee Democrat, motel personnel called police after Adams was accused of trying to fight an employee and threatening to take the employee’s life.

Officers arrived and made contact with Adams. Rather than immediately turning the encounter into a physical arrest, officers issued a trespass warning at the request of motel staff and gave him time to gather his belongings. Tallahassee Police later said officers spent more than an hour assisting while he removed property from the room.

The body-camera footage captures portions of that interaction. Adams is shirtless outside the motel while officers repeatedly explain that he needs to leave the property. The conversation is tense at times, but it does not immediately become violent.

The officer tells Adams that if he returns after being trespassed, he can be arrested. That warning becomes crucial later. The first encounter establishes a clear boundary: collect the belongings, leave the property, and do not come back.

At that stage, the situation appears capable of ending without an arrest. Adams has been warned and has an opportunity to depart. Police are not yet dealing with the fight that will later dominate the released footage.

Adams Returns to the Property

Less than two hours later, according to Tallahassee Police, Adams returned to the motel. One of the officers from the earlier call was still there and recognized him.

That changed the legal context. The officer was no longer simply asking a motel guest to leave. Police said Adams had returned after receiving the trespass warning, and the officer told him he was going to be arrested.

The body-camera footage shows Adams standing near North Monroe Street while speaking on a phone. He challenges the officer and does not comply with repeated instructions. The officer tries to keep distance while telling him to get on the ground.

At one point Adams challenges the officer to use the TASER. The officer continues issuing commands. Adams remains upright and moves closer rather than assuming the position the officer is demanding.

The confrontation is still verbal, but the available space between them is shrinking. The officer has to decide whether to continue waiting, physically approach Adams, or use a less-lethal tool to try to gain control.

The TASER Does Not End the Confrontation

The officer deploys his TASER. According to Tallahassee Police and the probable-cause affidavit, the TASER was used twice and had no effective incapacitating result.

That point corrects the central error in the original title. The important fact is not that Adams stole the TASER. It is that the TASER did not stop him.

The officer also uses his baton, striking Adams in the legs as he continues trying to gain compliance. Police said those efforts were ineffective as well.

Body-camera footage becomes increasingly unstable as the distance closes. Adams can be heard threatening the officer, and the officer moves from commands and less-lethal force toward hands-on control.

Use-of-force encounters can change in seconds when an option fails. A TASER is not guaranteed to incapacitate a person. Probe placement, clothing, distance, movement, electrical connection, and other factors can affect whether a deployment achieves neuromuscular incapacitation. The footage does not provide enough technical information to determine precisely why the TASER failed here, and Tallahassee Police publicly described it simply as ineffective.

Once that less-lethal option fails, the officer is still faced with the same problem: Adams is not complying with the arrest and is continuing the confrontation.

The Fight Moves to the Ground

The encounter then becomes a close physical struggle. The officer and Adams grapple, and the body camera records only fragments as the two men move across the grass.

Police said Adams violently resisted the arrest. The probable-cause affidavit described a fight in which the officer attempted to control him after the TASER and baton failed to bring the situation under control.

The officer is largely alone at the critical point. Body-camera footage shows the disadvantages of that position. There is no safe distance left, and the officer’s equipment is now within reach during a hands-on fight.

That detail becomes decisive. A duty belt places an officer’s handgun, TASER, handcuffs, magazines, radio equipment, and other tools within inches of a person during a ground struggle. Weapon retention becomes a major safety concern whenever a suspect is fighting an officer at that distance.

As the struggle intensifies, the officer reaches for his firearm. Police said Adams grabbed the handgun and the two men fought for control of it.

The Officer’s Own Handgun Discharges

The confrontation reaches its most dangerous point when the service weapon discharges during the struggle.

The round strikes the officer in the hand.

The camera captures the confusion immediately afterward. The officer realizes that Adams has control of his handgun and calls the emergency over the radio. The scene has now changed from a trespass arrest to an armed confrontation involving a wounded officer and a suspect in possession of a police firearm.

According to the probable-cause affidavit reported by the Tallahassee Democrat, the handgun was at one point pointed directly at the officer during the fight. Adams later made statements during transport indicating that he took the officer’s handgun and discarded it in a ditch.

Tallahassee Police described the officer as injured but stable and expected to recover. Local reporting said he was taken to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and later released.

This is why the corrected title focuses on the handgun. The TASER is an important part of the escalation, but the firearm is what transforms the encounter into a shooting and an attempted-murder investigation.

A Second Officer Arrives to an Armed Suspect

The first officer’s injury does not end the confrontation. Adams moves away with the service weapon as another Tallahassee officer arrives.

According to TPD, the second officer attempts to take Adams into custody. During that struggle, Adams allegedly reaches for the second officer’s firearm as well.

That creates another weapon-retention emergency. The arriving officer is confronting a man who police say has already gained control of one officer’s handgun during a violent struggle and left that officer wounded.

Help arrives from an unusual but fortunate source. Off-duty deputies from the Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office and Leon County Sheriff’s Office see the confrontation and stop to assist. With their help, Adams is eventually restrained and taken into custody.

Police emphasized the assistance of those deputies when describing how the encounter ended. The first officer had already been injured, and the second confrontation could have produced another loss of a firearm if additional personnel had not been able to gain control.

The Incident Began Hours Before the Gunshot

Viral body-camera clips often begin at the most dramatic moment. In this case, that can distort how much time officers had already spent trying to resolve the situation without a violent arrest.

The official account says the original call came from motel staff. Adams was given a trespass warning and time to remove his property. Officers stood by while he collected belongings. The warning was explicit: if he returned, he could be arrested.

The shooting did not occur during that first encounter. It occurred after Adams returned to the property and one of the same officers recognized him.

That sequence matters because it explains why the officer is telling Adams that he is going to jail rather than beginning another extended negotiation about whether he may remain at the motel.

The probable-cause affidavit also provides context for the initial call. A motel employee accused Adams of threatening him and attempting to fight. Those claims were allegations reported to police and should be treated as such rather than established facts about an offense that was never shown in the body-camera footage.

From Trespass Arrest to Attempted-Murder Charge

The legal stakes changed dramatically after the struggle over the gun.

WCTV reported that court documents charged Adams with felony attempted murder in connection with the encounter. Contemporary reports described the charge as attempted murder or attempted homicide of a law-enforcement officer. He was held without bond after the arrest.

The probable-cause affidavit became central to the case because it documented the sequence police said supported that charge: Adams returned after the trespass warning, resisted the arrest, fought the officer, gained control of the service weapon, and the weapon discharged while the officer was shot in the hand.

A charge is not a conviction. At the time of the early court reporting, Adams was assigned a public defender and entered a not-guilty plea.

That distinction remains essential. Police and prosecutors can allege attempted murder based on the evidence they believe supports the statutory elements, but guilt must be established through a plea or court adjudication. The footage itself is evidence of the encounter, not a substitute for the final court record.

The Original Title Gets the Weapon Wrong

The title “He Took the Officer’s Taser… Then It Got Worse” is close to the overall dramatic shape of the incident but inaccurate about the object Adams took.

The body-camera footage and every reliable incident source located during research agree on the crucial sequence. The officer deployed a TASER. The TASER did not effectively stop Adams. The officer used a baton. A physical struggle followed. During that struggle, the officer’s handgun came into play. Adams gained control of that firearm, and the officer was shot in the hand.

There is no reliable basis to say Adams took the officer’s TASER.

Correcting that detail is more than a minor editorial change. A TASER and a service handgun create very different risks, and confusing them changes the nature of the incident. The handgun explains the shooting, the officer’s emergency radio call, the massive police response, and the attempted-murder allegation.

For that reason, the rewritten titles stay close to the original idea of an encounter becoming dramatically worse while replacing the inaccurate TASER claim with the verified firearm struggle.

What the Body Camera Shows Directly

The supplied footage can be matched confidently to the Tallahassee incident. Its AXON overlay shows March 8, 2024. The man shown in the video matches the image identifying Willis Adams in the produced ending. The setting matches the North Monroe Street motel area, and the event sequence corresponds to TPD’s official release.

The footage shows officers interacting with Adams at the motel, giving him instructions about leaving, and later confronting him after his return. It shows the TASER confrontation and the physical fight. It captures the moment the officer realizes his gun is no longer under his control and that he has been wounded.

It also shows the arrival of additional law-enforcement personnel and the aftermath of the struggle.

Those observable facts align with the City of Tallahassee’s official March 8 release, WCTV’s reporting based on court documents, and the Tallahassee Democrat’s account of the probable-cause affidavit. This is therefore not a case where a similar news report has been attached to an unrelated body-camera clip. The date, suspect, motel, department, physical sequence, firearm loss, and officer injury all match.

The Officer’s Injury and Recovery

Tallahassee Police said the officer was shot in the hand and was in stable condition. Early reporting said he was expected to recover. Later coverage of the body-camera release reported that he had been treated at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and released.

The department did not initially identify the officer publicly in the sources reviewed for this article, and there is no need to speculate about his identity.

A hand gunshot can range widely in severity depending on the path of the projectile and the structures damaged. The public reporting does not provide a detailed medical diagnosis, so this article does not invent one.

The verified point is that the officer was struck by a round from his own service weapon during the struggle and survived.

Weapon Retention Becomes the Critical Issue

From a police-procedure perspective, this encounter illustrates why officers train extensively in weapon retention. A handgun that is secure during normal movement can become vulnerable when an officer is wrestling on the ground with another person.

The danger is not limited to the possibility that the suspect may intentionally reach for the firearm. A close fight can expose holsters, defeat an officer’s ability to maintain normal body position, and force simultaneous decisions about control, communication, and access to weapons.

Once an officer loses a firearm, the threat environment changes immediately. Other responding officers must treat the person possessing it as armed, even if the original confrontation began over a comparatively low-level offense such as trespassing.

That is exactly the transformation visible here. The reason for the arrest is trespass after warning. The reason the incident becomes a major armed response is the struggle over the officer’s handgun.

The Second Gun Grab Allegation Raises the Stakes Again

TPD’s official release says the danger continued after Adams left the injured officer. When another officer attempted to apprehend him, Adams allegedly reached for that officer’s firearm.

That allegation is significant because it suggests the first weapon struggle was not the only moment in which a duty weapon became part of the confrontation.

Off-duty deputies who happened to encounter the scene assisted in ending the second struggle. Their intervention gave officers additional manpower at a moment when one TPD officer was already wounded and another was attempting to control Adams.

The footage and official narrative therefore describe two separate critical phases: the initial fight in which the first officer loses his handgun and is shot, and the subsequent apprehension in which police say Adams reaches for another officer’s weapon.

What Adams Said After His Arrest

Reporting on the probable-cause affidavit says Adams made spontaneous statements while being transported to TPD headquarters. Among them, he reportedly said that the officer had shot him with a TASER and that he took the officer’s handgun and threw it into a ditch.

Those statements are attributed to the court document. They are not presented as a confession to attempted murder or as proof of every element of the charge.

The Tallahassee Democrat also reported that his interview at headquarters ended after he continued talking about individuals who were not in the room. That fact should not be turned into a mental-health diagnosis. The record available publicly does not establish a diagnosis, and unusual statements are not sufficient grounds to invent one.

The proper use of those post-arrest statements is narrower: they provide additional evidence that Adams acknowledged taking the handgun, according to the affidavit.

What the Court Record Established at the Beginning

In the immediate aftermath, court records established several procedural facts. Adams was charged with attempted murder. He was denied bond. He was assigned a public defender. He pleaded not guilty.

Those are separate legal events. The charge was an allegation. The no-bond status concerned pretrial detention. The not-guilty plea meant the case remained contested rather than resolved by an admission of guilt.

Research for this article searched for later reporting on a plea, trial, conviction, acquittal, dismissal, or sentence. No reliable final disposition matching this case was located in the publicly accessible sources reviewed.

That means the story should not leap from “charged with attempted murder” to “convicted of attempted murder.” Until a verified final judgment is available, the later outcome remains unconfirmed.

Why the Final Legal Outcome Is Left Open

The incident occurred in March 2024, so it is reasonable to ask what eventually happened in court. Serious felony cases can take substantial time to resolve, particularly when they involve contested evidence, competency issues, motions, plea negotiations, or trial preparation.

But the passage of time is not itself evidence of a particular outcome.

The searches conducted for this article located extensive reporting from March 2024, including the official police release, probable-cause details, body-camera coverage, and initial court proceedings. They did not locate a sufficiently reliable later source establishing a final adjudication and sentence.

Accordingly, the latest independently verified legal position presented here remains the early case status: Adams faced an attempted-murder charge and initially pleaded not guilty.

A Low-Level Call Turns Into a Life-Threatening Fight

The most striking aspect of the incident is the distance between where it starts and where it ends.

Police are initially called to remove a motel guest and issue a trespass warning. Officers spend time allowing him to gather his belongings. The interaction could have ended when he left the property.

Instead, Adams returns.

An officer recognizes him and tells him he is under arrest. Adams refuses to comply. A TASER is deployed and does not stop him. A baton does not end the resistance. The encounter becomes a ground fight. The officer’s handgun comes out. A round is fired. The officer is hit in the hand. Adams gains control of the firearm.

Then a second officer arrives and faces another struggle.

By the time Adams is finally restrained, multiple agencies are involved and an officer has been taken for medical treatment. What began as enforcement of a trespass warning has become an attempted-murder investigation.

The Camera Explains Why Accuracy Matters

This incident is also a useful example of why titles should be checked against footage and records rather than repeated automatically.

“He Took the Officer’s Taser” sounds plausible because the TASER plays a visible role in the confrontation. But the verified story is more serious and more specific. Adams did not need to take the TASER for the situation to become worse. The TASER failed to incapacitate him, the physical struggle continued, and he gained control of the officer’s firearm.

That distinction changes everything.

It explains the gunshot. It explains the officer’s injury. It explains why responding officers had to treat Adams as armed. It explains why prosecutors pursued an attempted-murder charge.

Accuracy does not make the story less compelling. In this case, the verified version is more consequential than the original title.

The Encounter Ends, but the Criminal Case Continues

Willis Adams was ultimately taken into custody after assistance arrived from off-duty deputies. The injured officer survived and was expected to recover.

The body-camera recording ends the immediate confrontation, but it does not resolve the criminal case. Prosecutors still had to evaluate the evidence, Adams was entitled to representation and due process, and the attempted-murder allegation had to proceed through court.

The verified public record shows that Adams pleaded not guilty in the initial proceedings. A later final outcome could not be independently confirmed during research for this article.

That is where the legal account should stop unless additional court records become available.

The footage itself, however, leaves little ambiguity about why the encounter drew so much attention. Officers gave Adams a chance to leave after the first trespass complaint. He returned. An officer tried to arrest him. Less-lethal options failed. A close fight followed. The officer lost control of his service handgun and was shot in the hand.

It is a sequence that demonstrates how quickly the risk in a police encounter can change when a struggle reaches an officer’s weapon.

The original title says things became worse after a TASER was taken. The verified story is different: the TASER failed, the fight continued, and the officer’s handgun became the center of the confrontation.

That was the moment a motel trespass arrest became something far more dangerous.