BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The Bradford County Sheriff’s Office said a man wanted for threatening a credit union pointed two weapons at deputies near the intersection of County Road 225 and State Road 16 between Starke and Raiford.
Four deputies returned fire, killing the suspect.
No deputies were injured in the shooting.
Col. Brad Smith said Florida Credit Union employees in Gainesville contacted his agency yesterday to report that a Bradford County resident had made threats over the phone to the credit union’s call center.
In response, deputies tried to locate the suspect but were unable to find him.
On Tuesday, around 4 p.m., the Starke branch of Florida Credit Union, near Walmart, reported a man at the branch open carrying a firearm on his hip.
“So, they call us,” Smith said. “He had already left by the time we got there.”
Deputies reached the suspect’s brother, who told them his brother’s mental state was unstable.
“We get a hold of the guy’s brother,” Smith reported. “The guy’s brother says, ‘Yeah, he hasn’t been acting right lately, and he needs to be checked, and we’re not sure what’s going on.’”
Deputies also determined that the suspect was staying at his father’s house, which faces Northside Baptist Church.
Smith said four officers, including the lieutenant in charge of the office’s patrol division, positioned themselves around the mobile home and initiated a callout for the suspect.
“They came up here with extra officers,” Smith said, “and what they planned to do was call him out to us. They didn’t know what he had. They knew he had a firearm earlier in the day, so they didn’t want to just go up to the door and start talking to him.”
After deputies began the callout, the suspect’s father exited the home and walked toward the officers.
“They’re debriefing (the father) to see if he’s in there, what’s he got, what’s he doing, how’s he acting?” Smith said. “And at that point in time, the suspect comes out of the house with a shotgun in his hand. Officers see him, they’re trying to get him to put the gun down, he turns around, goes back inside, then comes back out, still has the shotgun in one hand, and what looks like a rifle in the other hand.”
While deputies tried to calm the man down, he fired one round in the air. When he lowered the guns toward the deputies, they opened fire, killing the man on a ramp in front of the mobile home.
Smith stated that his deputies adhered to office policy during the encounter.
“We’re not going to put ourselves—” the undersheriff said. “Once he lowers the weapon, there is a threat. He fired the gun, brought it down, and he’s pointing it at the officers, so they returned fire.”
Within an hour of the shooting, Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators were interviewing the deputies at the scene.
