A man 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 people, including a mother and her baby, and wounding an 11-year-old girl before giving up and telling police he was high on drugs, authorities said.
The shooting unfolded before dawn at two adjacent homes on the same property near Lakeland, Florida, about 35 miles east of Tampa. 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.
Grady said that 9 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." He said deputies responded to the 911 call within six minutes, but the man was nowhere to be found.
Damage to the back of a Polk County, Fla., house is pictured in an image provided by the Polk County Sheriff's Office showing where a Polk sheriff's lieutenant entered the house and exchanged fire with a shooting suspect in Lakeland, Fla., Sept. 5, 2021.
The sheriff said the same man returned to the home around 4:30 a.m. Sunday and allegedly unleashed a barrage of fatal gunfire.
He said that as deputies 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 LED road flares.
"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 Grady, adding that deputies initially did not see the man holding a gun.
He said the suspect immediately retreated into the house and deputies immediately heard another volley of automatic gunfire that was followed by a woman screaming and baby crying.
Grady said a sheriff's lieutenant initially tried to enter the front door, but it was barricaded. When the lieutenant went to the back of the house, a gunfight erupted.
"The suspect shot at our lieutenant. Our lieutenant returned fire and backed out of the house," Grady said.
Police lights on a street at night.
He said three deputies in front of the house were pinned down by gunfire directed at them and that other officers returned fire, giving the trapped deputies time to get out of harm's way.
"I can tell you there were at least dozens if not hundreds of rounds fired this morning between our suspect and our deputies who were directing fire back at him," Grady said.
No law enforcement officers were injured in the incident, Grady said.
He said the shooting subsided and the suspect, who was shot once in the shootout, walked out of the home with his hands up and surrendered.
"When someone chooses to give up, we take them into custody peacefully," Grady said. "If he had given us the opportunity, we would have shot him up a lot. But he didn't because he was a coward."
Grady said that after the suspect was arrested, deputies and Lakeland police officers heard sounds coming from inside the house and shouted out orders for people to come out. He said deputies briefly entered the homes and found an 11-year-old girl shot multiple times but still conscious.
"She looks our deputies in the eyes and said, 'There's three more dead people in the house,'" Grady said.
He said deputies removed the girl from the home and she was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital, where she was undergoing surgery Sunday morning and is expected to survive.
Fearing the residence was booby-trapped, a robot was sent into the house to search for explosives, he said. Deputies then entered the home and discovered three people fatally shot, a man and a mother cradling an infant in her arms.
Deputies found the fourth victim, a woman who was fatally shot in a nearby house on the same property.
The names of the victims and the suspected gunman were not immediately released.
Grady said a preliminary investigation, which he cautioned is subject to change, indicates the suspect, has no connection to the people he allegedly killed and hurt.
"As far as we can tell from this moment in time, he's not from this county or city area," Grady said. "At this early point in the investigation, we don't know how he ended up there or why he ended up there. But he showed up twice in nine hours."
After being taken into custody, the suspect allegedly told deputies that he is a "survivalist" and that he had been using methamphetamine.
"This guy admitted to us that he was taking those drugs before he went on this active shooter rampage," Grady said.
He said that when Lakeland police officers took the suspect to a hospital to be treated, a scuffle broke out and the suspect allegedly tried to grab one officer's gun.
"They had to fight with him again in the Lakeland emergency room," Grady said. "Once we got him tied down, they gave him medication to render him unable to fight any longer and they could continue to treat him."
