By Dan Sullivan
Tampa Bay Times
TAMPA — The man who prosecutors said intentionally rammed into a Hillsborough County sheriff’s patrol cruiser in 2021, killing Sgt. Brian LaVigne hours before he was set to retire, admitted Tuesday to a murder charge in exchange for 45 years in prison.
In an agreement with state prosecutors, Travis Zachary Garrett pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder and other crimes related to the deputy’s death in exchange for a sentence that ensures he will remain incarcerated for decades.
Garrett, 32, who was left paralyzed from the fatal collision, sat in a wheelchair Tuesday morning before a courtroom packed with uniformed sheriff’s deputies, including LaVigne’s daughter. He quietly answered a series of questions from Hillsborough Circuit Judge Robin Fuson to ensure he understood his guilty plea before being sentenced.
It was a perfunctory end to a four-year legal odyssey whose central questions concerned whether Garrett was insane when the crime occurred. Had he been convicted as charged at trial, Garrett would have faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
LaVigne’s daughter, Caitlin, sat straight-backed on a witness stand in a white uniform, with a sheriff’s star affixed to her chest on Tuesday morning. She expressed conflicting emotions about the outcome. Ultimately, avoiding a trial would spare the family having to see and hear the details of how their father died.
“It’s not to show you mercy,” she said, looking directly at Garrett. “It’s to give mercy upon ourselves.”
After listening to the deputy’s family talk about how he had devastated their lives, Garrett offered a brief apology.
“I wish that I could change things, but I know that I can’t,” he said. “I’m just really very sorry.”
There was scarce discussion in court about the negotiations that led to the agreement for Garrett to plead guilty. The development came after attorneys for the state and defense had consulted experts who were expected to testify that Garrett, a disabled veteran, suffered from bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders.
LaVigne, 54, had worked in law enforcement for three decades and was a shift away from retirement when he was killed.
It happened Jan. 11, 2021, after his fellow Hillsborough sheriff’s deputies were called to a disturbance at the Paddock Club apartments off Lumsden Road in Brandon.
The call was the second time that day deputies had taken a complaint about Garrett. That morning, neighbors reported that he’d smashed a glass outside his apartment door. When a deputy arrived, Garrett made an obscene comment and told the deputy to go away.
Apartment managers complained again later that day that Garrett was walking around naked and tossing items out of his apartment. Two deputies arrived to find Garrett clad only in sandals as he stepped past broken glass through a breezeway and down a walkway.
He carried a backpack, with a dark satchel strapped across his chest. Garrett first ignored the deputies as they tried to talk to him. He walked to a silver Nissan, raised a cellphone, smiled and snapped a selfie.
A scuffle ensued as one deputy tried to stop Garrett from getting into the car’s driver’s seat. He endured jolts from a Taser and shouted “God bless you” and “I love you” amid the melee.
Garrett managed to get back into the car and sped off, winding through the apartment complex and smashing through an iron exit gate. He made his way onto Lumsden Road as the deputies pursued.
LaVigne was parked by the roadside near the apartment complex.
In court, Assistant State Attorney Michelle Doherty said a camera on the dashboard of Garrett’s car recorded him veering across traffic lanes before he slammed into the driver’s side of LaVigne’s patrol cruiser. A data recorder from Garrett’s car showed it was moving at 76 mph, with the accelerator fully depressed, when the collision occurred, Doherty said.
Rescue workers pried LaVigne from his car. His spine was dislocated, the prosecutor said. He also suffered blunt impacts to his head and neck. He was taken to Tampa General Hospital, where he was declared dead.
A corporal when he died, he was posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant.
Garrett was hospitalized before being booked in jail on first-degree murder and other charges.
Attorneys from the public defender’s office last year filed notice that they would pursue an insanity defense. They listed as a witness a psychiatrist who was expected to testify that at the time of the deputy’s death, Garrett did not understand what he was doing or that it was wrong.
The bar to prove an insanity defense in Florida, though, is high and seldom successful.
The state had tapped their own forensic psychiatrist as a witness, though it was unclear to what extent his testimony might counter the defense’s expert.
A court paper that accompanied the state expert’s report referenced an academic study that examined the extent to which marijuana use worsens the symptoms of people with bipolar disorder. At the time of Garrett’s arrest, he had marijuana and cocaine in his blood, according to court records.
In court Tuesday, LaVigne’s son, Liam, spoke in detail about his own mental health struggles. His father’s death made his fears and insecurities worse, he said. But he added that he could never use his struggles to justify hurting someone else.
“I hope you are listening,” he said to Garrett. “It didn’t ever have to be like this. This is the life you chose.”
Caitlin LaVigne, the deputy’s daughter, spoke with pride about the day her father pinned the badge on her own uniform. For nine years, they worked together. She would give anything, she said, for another afternoon.
She reserved her final words to disparage the man who took him away.
“You killed him in a cowardly and pathetic way,” she told Garrett. “Had this been a fair fight, you wouldn’t have won. You didn’t give him a chance to defend himself.”
“You’re a weak, pathetic excuse for a human,” she said. “I can’t wait to never think about you again.”
Cathleen LaVigne, the deputy’s widow, recalled the man who’d spent a career serving the public, who knew well how to handle tense situations.
“Brian was the guy who was most likely to have deescalated that situation,” his wife told Garrett. “You had 32 years of experience coming to take care of your call.”
She echoed her children’s recollection of the ever-present anxiety that comes with having a loved one in law enforcement — an early-morning glance through the front window to see if his patrol car made it home after a night shift, the reassuring ripping noise as he undid the straps on his bullet-resistant vest, a sound that meant he was home and safe.
“I think every cop knows the sound of bulletproof vest Velcro,” she said. “I’d give anything to hear that one more time.”
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