A Bay Minette man died Thursday, roughly a week after being shot multiple times during a confrontation with a Baldwin County sheriff’s deputy responding to a disturbance call, according to officials with the sheriff’s office. The man, identified as 54-year-old Gilbert Fleury, died at a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, where he had been transported following the March 11 shooting.
The Baldwin County Major Crimes Unit, which investigates officer-involved shootings in the county, said detectives were coordinating with Florida law enforcement and planned to be present for the autopsy. Because Fleury died across the state line, the death added a layer of interagency coordination to a review that was already extensive, with investigators working to document his injuries and the circumstances of the shooting for the official record.
In a statement released after Fleury’s death, investigators extended condolences to his family. The sheriff’s office said the investigation into the shooting remains active and asked anyone with information about the events leading up to the confrontation to contact investigators with either the Robertsdale Police Department or the Daphne Police Department, both of which are assisting with the outside review common in officer-involved shooting cases.
How the confrontation unfolded
According to Baldwin County Sheriff Huey Hoss Mack, the incident began late on the night of March 11 when deputies responded to a report of a disorderly man who appeared to be damaging his own home in the Cliff’s Landing area near Bay Minette. A neighbor had also reported hearing what sounded like gunfire in the area before deputies arrived, raising the stakes for the responding deputies before they ever reached the scene.
Sheriff Mack said that when deputies attempted to make contact with Fleury, he pointed a shotgun at one of the responding officers and is believed to have fired at least one round. A deputy returned fire, striking Fleury multiple times. Three deputies were identified as having responded to the scene, though authorities have not specified which deputy or deputies discharged their weapons.
Deputies involved in shootings are routinely placed on administrative leave while the review proceeds, a standard practice intended both to protect the integrity of the investigation and to allow the officers to step back from duty during a stressful and exacting process. The sheriff’s office has not released details about the administrative status of the deputies involved, and no additional information about the ultimate findings of the review has been made public.
The community context
Cliff’s Landing is a quiet residential area northwest of Bay Minette, the county seat of Baldwin County, where homes sit along tree-lined roads well removed from the commercial corridors of U.S. 31 and Interstate 65. Calls involving a disorderly person damaging a residence are among the most unpredictable calls deputies answer, because responding officers typically have no way of knowing whether weapons are involved until they make contact. The earlier report of possible gunfire in the area, relayed by a neighbor before deputies arrived, meant the responding trio already had reason to believe the situation could turn violent.
Bay Minette sits at the northern end of Baldwin County, a growing county of more than 200,000 residents that stretches from the tidewater communities of Mobile Bay to the beaches of the Gulf. The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office provides law enforcement coverage across the county’s unincorporated areas and supports the municipal departments that dot the county, and its deputies answer a widening range of calls as the county’s population and geography both expand.
The Major Crimes Unit that now leads the review is a standing multi-agency body built to handle exactly this kind of case. By staffing its investigations with detectives from several departments, the unit spreads the workload of a complex death investigation and insulates the findings from questions about any single agency reviewing its own people. In this case, the Robertsdale and Daphne police departments have taken on the outside-assistance role, collecting tips and statements from members of the public.
What comes next
The autopsy scheduled in Pensacola is a key milestone. Medical examiners will document the number and placement of the gunshot wounds, test for impairment, and establish the cause and manner of death — findings that investigators say they intended to observe in person. Because Fleury survived for roughly a week after the shooting before dying at the Pensacola hospital, medical records from that interval will also become part of the record, documenting the treatment he received and the course of his decline.
For the family, the week between the shooting and Fleury’s death is itself part of the record investigators will reconstruct. Statements from relatives and neighbors about his condition and state of mind in the days before the confrontation could inform the review’s account of how the night of March 11 unfolded, which is why detectives have kept their public request for information open even as the formal examination moves forward.
Sheriff Mack’s office has committed to releasing updates as the investigation progresses, though multi-agency reviews of this kind routinely take weeks or months to reach formal conclusions. Until the autopsy findings, scene reconstruction and witness statements are complete, the central questions — the sequence of the exchange of gunfire, the number of rounds fired, and the deputies’ account of the threat they faced — remain under active investigation by the unit charged with answering them.
A multi-agency review process
Officer-involved shooting investigations in Baldwin County typically involve a multi-agency review process, with detectives from outside departments brought in to conduct an independent examination of the circumstances surrounding the use of force. The practice of pulling in investigators who had no role in the underlying call is intended to remove any appearance of bias that might arise if a department investigated its own personnel, and it has become the standard template across Alabama for reviews of police shootings.
That process was already underway in the days following the shooting and is expected to continue now that Fleury has died from his injuries. His death changes the scope of the review in practical terms: what began as an investigation into the use of force now includes a death, which means the autopsy and medical findings become central evidence. Detectives planned to attend the autopsy in Florida to observe the examination firsthand and coordinate with Florida authorities on the handling of findings that will feed into the Alabama review.
Once investigators complete their work, findings in cases like this are typically presented for review at a level above the responding agency, where prosecutors assess whether the use of force was legally justified under Alabama’s standards governing self-defense and the defense of others. That assessment hinges on the deputies’ account of the confrontation, physical evidence from the scene, autopsy results and any witness statements collected in the days after the shooting.
Investigators have continued to ask for the public’s help in filling in the timeline. The sheriff’s office has asked anyone with information about the events leading up to the confrontation — including neighbors who heard the earlier reports of gunfire or who saw activity around the Cliff’s Landing home that night — to contact detectives with the Robertsdale or Daphne police departments, which are serving as the outside agencies on the case.
The case remains under investigation, and no additional details about the deputies involved or the ultimate findings of the Major Crimes Unit’s review have been released publicly. Sheriff’s office officials say updates will be provided as the investigation progresses and appropriate authorities complete their review of the incident.
The community context
Cliff’s Landing is a quiet residential area northwest of Bay Minette, the county seat of Baldwin County, where homes sit along tree-lined roads well removed from the commercial corridors of U.S. 31 and Interstate 65. Calls involving a disorderly person damaging a residence are among the most unpredictable calls deputies answer, because responding officers typically have no way of knowing whether weapons are involved until they make contact. The earlier report of possible gunfire in the area, relayed by a neighbor before deputies arrived, meant the responding trio already had reason to believe the situation could turn violent.
Bay Minette sits at the northern end of Baldwin County, a growing county that stretches from the tidewater communities along Mobile Bay to the beaches of the Gulf. The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office provides law enforcement coverage across the county’s unincorporated areas and supports the municipal departments that dot the county, and its deputies answer a widening range of calls as the county’s population and geography both expand.
The Major Crimes Unit that now leads the review is a standing multi-agency body built to handle exactly this kind of case. By staffing its investigations with detectives from several departments, the unit spreads the workload of a complex death investigation and insulates the findings from questions about any single agency reviewing its own people. In this case, the Robertsdale and Daphne police departments have taken on the outside-assistance role, collecting tips and statements from members of the public.
What comes next
The autopsy in Pensacola is a key milestone. Medical examiners will document the number and placement of the gunshot wounds, and establish the cause and manner of death — findings that investigators said they intended to observe in person. Because Fleury survived for roughly a week after the shooting before dying at the Pensacola hospital, medical records from that interval will also become part of the record, documenting the treatment he received and the course of his decline.
For the family, the week between the shooting and Fleury’s death is itself part of the record investigators will reconstruct. Statements from relatives and neighbors about his condition and state of mind in the days before the confrontation could inform the review’s account of how the night of March 11 unfolded, which is why detectives have kept their public request for information open even as the formal examination moves forward.
Sheriff Mack’s office has committed to releasing updates as the investigation progresses, though multi-agency reviews of this kind routinely take weeks or months to reach formal conclusions. Until the autopsy findings, scene reconstruction and witness statements are complete, the central questions — the sequence of the exchange of gunfire, the number of rounds fired, and the deputies’ account of the threat they faced — remain under active investigation by the unit charged with answering them.