JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is investigating a shooting turned SWAT situation at the Hollybrook Homes Apartments in Jacksonville’s Lackawanna neighborhood.
Action News Jax was on scene Thursday morning and heard loud bangs and SWAT over a loud speaker shouting demands to someone in the apartments. Authorities breached one apartment unit, however, an officer told Action News Jax Thursday morning that nobody was inside.
“I thought some guy pulled up in that lot, blew out a tire or something,” Roger Sides, a truck driver who parked overnight nearby and heard officers breach the apartment said. “I get up and I see police and you guys out here and I’m like, what the heck is going on?”
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According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, the scene began at around 8:50 p.m. Wednesday night, when officers responded to the apartment complex on Kings Road and found a teenager shot in the chest.
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue responded and took the victim, in his late teens, to the hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
The shooter — described as an older bald man wearing all black clothing — was caught on surveillance video running away from the apartments in an unknown direction.
“Somebody said it was a young man killed and I hate it for him and his family and everybody else,” Sides told Action News Jax Thursday morning. “And I hated it had come to a point to where someone felt they had to do this.”
Sides said the incident serves as yet another reminder of the need for compassion over violence.
“Life is too short. I got great grandkids, six of them. And I’d hate to think what’s coming to them, or someone just like for a second to do something that’s permanent, that you can’t change,” Sides reflected. “Too much evil in the world.”
Action News Jax was told as of 11:30 a.m. Thursday, the suspect had not yet been caught.
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