Workers and tenants are now allowed to enter and exit the Motel 6 on Dunn Avenue in North Jacksonville.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office took down the crime scene tape, after closing the area off for investigation for four to five hours on Wednesday.
Action News Jax Courtney Cole spent the day on the scene where the deadly officer-involved shooting happened. Motel tenants who were there when the incident happened told Cole they’re in shock at what they witnessed.
ORIGINAL: Deadly officer-involved shooting at Jacksonville motel, JSO says
"I came back home to the states from India and I came back to this -- it's horrible,” said Lasonia Kassim.
Kassim told Action News Jax she had been only been staying at the Motel 6 for the last three days.
Kassim said she was video-messaging her son,*inside her room when shots rang out.
"He said, 'Mama get down!' I said 'no Brandon, something is wrong!" exclaimed Kassim.
That's when Kassim got up to open the door and see what was happening.
MORE: Jacksonville police working second officer-involved shooting in 24 hours, suspect dead
"I am three doors up from the parking lot and I see an officer holstering his gun, backing away,” said Kassim.
Johntia Coley said she and her mom were trying to leave their room this morning when the shooting happened.
"We heard eight to nine shots that rang out— and I just balled up in the bed and started crying because I told my mom, ‘somebody's dead.’"
Coley said the suspect’s body was laying right behind their car.
“It's so nerve-wrecking to see him to see him laying on the ground like that. It's just a lot,” Coley told Action News Jax.
Both women told Cole they didn't hear anything leading up to the shooting.
“No yelling, no shouting just gunshots,” said Kassim.
“All you heard was, pop pop pop pop pop!” said Coley.
Action News Jax Courtney Cole spoke to neighbors in the area of the motel to learn how they feel about their safety in the area.
"It's kind of slow since we re-opened the store a month ago,” said Lois Haynes.
Haynes is an employee at the 76 gas station.
"Things are starting to pick up,” Haynes told Action News Jax.
The gas station is located right on the corner of Harts Road and Dunn Avenue— right next to the Motel 6.
Haynes told Cole she didn't even know a shooting had happened at the motel Wednesday morning.
She just knows JSO responded very quickly to the scene.
"We didn't even hear any gunshots or anything. All we heard were sirens,” Haynes said.
The gas station employee said in the time she's been here, she hasn't had any problems—or felt unsafe.
"Everything's been quiet...[customers] come in and doing their business and they're back out,” Haynes told Action News Jax.
Action News Jax Courtney Cole used JSO’s Crimemapping tool to check the crime in this area.
In the last six months, there have been more than 200 crimes reported within a ½ -half mile radius of the Motel 6 on Dunn Avenue.
JSO told Action News Jax they do proactively patrol hotels like the Motel 6 because of the crimes that tend to happen around them.