When the lieutenant went to the back of the house, a gunfight erupted.
Judd said a sheriff’s lieutenant initially tried to enter the front door, but it was barricaded. He said the suspect immediately retreated into the house and deputies heard another volley of automatic gunfire that was followed by a woman screaming and a baby crying. “At that moment in time, as we approached, we saw an individual totally outfitted in body armor and looked as if he was ready to engage us all in an active shooter situation,” said Judd, adding that deputies initially did not see the man holding a gun. The sheriff said that when deputies first approached the home where the shooting occurred, they saw a truck on fire and a path leading from the road to the house illuminated by glow sticks. “We find zero connection between our shooter, our murderer and our victims,” Judd said. Sunday and allegedly unleashed a barrage of fatal gunfire. The sheriff said the same man, who he identified as Bryan James Riley, 33, of Brandon, Florida, returned to the home around 4:30 a.m. The sheriff said deputies responded to the 911 call within six minutes, but the man was nowhere to be found. Judd said the woman and another witness told the suspect there was no one by that name who lived at the residence and told him to leave or they were going to call the police. Judd said that nine hours earlier, deputies received a 911 call from the same home and that a woman reported a strange man parked near her residence who allegedly told her he was there because “God sent me here to speak with one of your daughters,” Amber, to prevent her from committing suicide. A sheriff’s lieutenant two miles away heard the volley of automatic gunfire, responded to the scene and radioed for backup, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference. The shooting unfolded before dawn at two adjacent homes on the same property near Lakeland, Florida, about 35 miles east of Tampa. He was arrested on four counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted first degree murder, seven counts of attempted first degree murder on a law enforcement officer, shooting into an occupied dwelling, two counts of armed burglary with battery, arson and cruelty to an animal, according to the probable cause affidavit released by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the suspect allegedly told investigators the victims “begged for their lives, and I killed him anyway.”
#Ex marine sharpshooter kills 4 full#
(POLK COUNTY, Fla.) - A former Marine sharpshooter dressed in full body armor and wielding an automatic weapon allegedly went on an early-morning shooting “rampage” in Polk County, Florida, on Sunday, killing four strangers, including a mother and her baby, and wounding an 11-year-old girl before giving up, authorities said.