JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A man was taken into custody late Thursday morning following an hours-long SWAT standoff after police said he fired several rounds in a second-floor apartment at the Gregory Cove Apartments.
Police responded at around 2 a.m. were faced with a man with a gun. Investigators later found no one was in the apartment with the suspect.
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Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Karen Dukes said officers saw the “suspect standing in window of apartment with gun in his hand” and “he appeared to be a very active threat to our community.”
Dukes said the SWAT team was called in and K-9 officers responded as well.
“During the apprehension, one of our K9s were deployed and the K9 assisted in taking the suspect into custody,” she said.
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Dukes said the man is in his 20s and has a history of drug abuse, but he is not a convicted felon. Two weapons and ammunition were found in the home. Police said he shot into unoccupied vehicles.
The man was taken to the hospital for treatment for dog bites.
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“This could have ended very badly because these are two apartment complexes,” Dukes said.
Dukes said the K-9 officer was deployed because “the entire time, he was not compliant. We tried to negotiate with him peacefully. And we were working with his family members to try to get this to a resolution that didn’t hurt him.”
During the police response, Edenfield Road was closed to car and foot traffic. Some residents were able to be evacuated, while others were encouraged by police to shelter in place.
“We’ve got an armed suspect that has already fired rounds in a community with apartment buildings and so our first thing is to shut it down and evacuate people,” Dukes said.
Some Duval County Public Schools students were also not able to catch the bus due to police activity.
“We sure don’t want kids out walking to standing at a bus stop when we still don’t have a suspect detained,” Dukes said.
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DCPS shared the following statement about the students who were affected:
“Because families have been told to shelter in place, children couldn’t get to the bus stops and we couldn’t get buses to them. We just informed families to be safe and that there would be no academic consequences. Any work or tests missed will be able to be made up.”
Celestine Anderson, who lives at the neighboring Sundance Pointe Apartments, said one of the bullets fired came through her wall.
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“I’m devastated right now,” she told Action News Jax’s Meghan Moriarty.
She said her son’s girlfriend’s 6-year-old daughter was sleeping on the couch feet away from where a bullet later came through the wall when the shooting started.
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“He had grabbed her up,” she said.
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Anderson showed Moriarty where the bullet came through and became lodged in the wall.
“There’s a hole through here,” she said. “It looked like it came through and went this way.”
“I’m still shooken by it. I’m scared,” she said.
Action News Jax also sent them a higher-quality video of the K9 deployment to JSO, and it said the incident is now under administrative review. However, JSO said it cannot say anything else on the matter right now since the review is ongoing.
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