JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – An arson suspect was killed Wednesday after he threatened an officer with a knife amid a mental health episode, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
JSO Chief Alan Parker said at 7 a.m., officers responded to a call from the suspect’s mother at the 1500 block of East 16th Street.
Watch the full JSO briefing below.
Investigators said the suspect, a man in his 30s, attempted to light a neighbor’s house on fire and when two people came out of the house, the suspect took off running while carrying a knife.
The fire was extinguished and the people who came out of the house were not harmed.
Other officers arrived and set up a perimeter for about an hour and a half. They were about to break it down because they couldn’t find the suspect, but K-9 Officer Caleb Bumgarner then saw him walking down the sidewalk and attempted to stop him by calling him by name, JSO said.
Parker said the suspect took off running with the knife, then Bumgarner drove to catch up with him. The officer got out of the car and attempted to engage the suspect with his Taser, JSO said.
Parker said as the officer got out of the car, the suspect threatened him and pushed the knife out in the direction of the Bumgarner twice, saying, “Get back, get back.” The officer then dropped his Taser and shot the man with his pistol, JSO said. The officer fired five times, JSO said.
“That’s a lethal encounter. At that point, he [Bumgarner] goes to lethal force,” Parker said.
The suspect dropped down to the sidewalk with a knife still in his hand and waited as other officers arrived so they could render medical aid.
The officers disarmed him and gave medical aid, but he died at the scene, JSO said.
A neighbor who didn’t want to be identified said he was sitting on his front porch when he heard the gunshots.
“I saw the helicopter fly around the area about 20 minutes later I heard five shots and I saw all the firetrucks and the police coming,” the man said.
He said they haven’t experienced something like that in the neighborhood before.
“You can say it’s like off and on, but it’s nothing that happens every day, every week, every month. It’s very sudden that we do have something like this happen around here,” the man said.
Bumgarner has been with JSO for 11 years, and it is his first officer-involved shooting. This is JSO’s 13th officer-involved shooting in 2025.
JSO said the man who was killed, who was not identified, did not have a criminal history but had been Baker Acted multiple times.