Suspect tries to stab deputy and is shot for his efforts in Florida [VIDEOS]

New surveillance footage and body cameras have been released, offering insight into the events that led an Indian River County sheriff's deputy to shoot Jeffrey Lee Miller, 42, of Palm Bay, on Sunday night at a gas station in Vero Beach.

According to Sheriff Eric Flowers, the deputy's actions were “heroic.” The incident began when the deputy concluded a call about an intoxicated woman at a McDonald's adjacent to the RaceTrac on County Road 512.

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The deputy heard a disturbance on his way out and, after investigating, was forced to act in self-defense.

Surveillance and body camera footage showed Miller running toward the deputy with a knife before he was shot and killed.

Flowers wanted to point out that “as soon as he walks in up there, he has no idea what's going on here, and all of a sudden this guy comes at him with a knife … pulls out his gun. The boy chases him with a knife. That's when he calls the shots. The man goes down.”

Miller had a lengthy rap sheet with several criminal charges under his name, including robbery, child abuse and terroristic threats, and had an active warrant out of Pennsylvania for a parole violation.

The tattoo on Miller's chest, as well as his behavior before the fatal encounter, suggested to Flowers that he may have been part of a gang.

According to Flowers, Miller was traveling to Vero Beach with his wife Sunday night for an unknown purpose.

During their trip, he told her he wanted to kill a police officer in Palm Bay.

Miller's troubling behavior continued during the trip as he stabbed an air mattress with the same knife he would later use in his confrontation with the deputy and repeatedly tried to exit his moving vehicle on I-95.

Before the shooting, Miller was chasing two men in the RaceTrac parking lot.

The deputy who later shot Miller is a 44-year-old man with six and a half years of law enforcement experience.

The sheriff called him a hero, stressing that he had no idea there was a disturbance in the parking lot and that Miller was a danger to the public.

The deputy was not injured in the incident.

Full press conference below: