BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The Bradford County Sheriff’s Office said a suspect in custody died after deputies chased the 43-year-old into a football-sized pond and swam with the man to shore.
Workers at HCA Florida Starke Emergency pronounced Justin Hogg dead shortly after Bradford Fire Rescue delivered the man to the facility.
According to a sheriff’s office social media post, deputies attempted to serve a warrant on the suspect in the Riverbend Estates neighborhood between Graham and Brooker around 4:10 p.m. on Saturday, September 7. They were also seeking to question the man, who resided near State Road 100 between Starke and Keystone Heights, about a firearm that had been stolen the previous day.
“While driving into the private community on a one-lane dirt road, the deputies observed the subject driving towards them in a blue Tahoe,” the agency said. “They attempted a traffic stop in the roadway, but the subject accelerated around the first patrol vehicle and rammed the second one. The Tahoe veered into a ditch, and the subject fled on foot into a nearby pond.”
Undersheriff Brad Smith said that when Deputies Trinton Lovell and Mark Juen reached the water body, Hogg was already 30 feet from shore.
Smith said they caught up with Hogg when he was about 100 feet in, with the suspect backstroking away from the officers and attempting to splash water on the deputies as they got closer.
The undersheriff said that while the officers swam the suspect back to shore, Hogg “went under a time or two.”
Smith said he is amazed Juen and Lovell were able to maintain buoyancy in the pond because neither shed any of their agency-issued gear before jumping in.
After reaching land, all three men collapsed in exhaustion until one deputy returned to the water to retrieve a bag the suspect carried into the pond. Smith said the bag contained a firearm.
After the officer retrieved the bag, Lovell and Juen escorted the suspect back to the vehicles Smith said were about 100 yards from where the trio exited the pond.
“He was walking but needed some assistance,” Smith said of Hogg, adding that as medics drove up to the scene, the suspect was leaning on a vehicle.
Smith said that soon after fire rescue arrived, Hogg collapsed, and medics performed life-saving procedures before transporting the man to Starke.
Smith said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating Hogg’s death and that the medical examiner will perform an autopsy on the detainee.
