ATLANTIC BEACH, Fla. – Two people who were at a fitness center in Atlantic Beach on Monday evening recalled the chaotic scene that ended in a deadly officer-involved shooting involving the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
One of the witnesses, who owns Kai Fitness in Atlantic Beach, told News4JAX he heard multiple gunshots at the scene of the officer-involved shooting incident that began at a boat ramp and ended in a crash and a standoff in Atlantic Beach.
According to JSO, the incident began around 6 p.m. at the Dutton Island Preserve boat ramp, where a couple from Georgia was fishing when they heard gunshots from across the water.
The couple told police they saw a man, 37, shooting a rifle into the water, and the husband decided to approach the man and ask him if he was OK.
When the husband approached the man, things turned tense fast when the 37-year-old pointed his rifle at him, police said.
JSO said the husband then attempted to de-escalate the situation, and as he walked away, the man with the rifle could be heard saying, “I know you guys already called the police, and the only way they’re getting me out of here is dead.”
The husband and the man engaged in conversation again, police said, and as the incident began to de-escalate, the man asked the couple if they had anything he could drink.
As the husband went to hand the man a sports drink, JSO said, the man pointed the rifle at the husband’s head, which led to a scuffle over the gun.
Police said the husband managed to get on top of the other man during a brief fight and removed the magazine.
After the couple and the man got into their respective vehicles, the man tried to ram the couple with his truck, “barreling at them head-on,” police said. When the couple veered to the right, the vehicles sideswiped one another.
When the couple made it to the front of the neighborhood, they realized that the man had been involved in a separate crash on Mayport Road and had hit a pole.
Giovanna Oliviera, who attends Kai Fitness, said she saw the man coming toward her at full speed.
“When he was coming towards me at full speed and I was stopped, I was like, I’m gonna die,” Oliviera said. “He careened off and went off onto the left-hand lane, which was then directly coming straight out at me for a straight-on collision. I couldn’t do anything.”
Oliviera said, thankfully, the man missed her.
“The only thing I could have done was go try to accelerate and go left to try to avoid the head-on collision. But I don’t know, I just didn’t do that. And good thing I didn’t, because he was within 10 feet of hitting me, he just veered really hard to the right, so he missed me completely,” she said.
Oliveria said she quickly called Kai Fitness owner, Scott Hernandez, who said he and his clients rushed outside to see what was going on.
“I saw the car roll over in the street, and then I saw a white truck crash into the bushes in front of my business, in the business next door,” Hernandez said. “The cops came and I guess there were some guns involved, because they had gunpoint, and they held the gun, they said, ‘Get inside.’”
JSO said its officers arrived at the Mayport Road crash scene and talked with the man from about 6:05 p.m. to 7:33 p.m., giving him multiple commands.
Police said the man “acted like he couldn’t get out of the door” and was “almost barricaded” near the back window of the vehicle.
Meanwhile, Hernandez said they waited inside his establishment for hours as officers tried to get the man to surrender.
“We heard people saying, ‘Please come out of the car. We don’t want to hurt you,’ about 20 times, the police officers were saying it, and no one was moving,” Hernandez said.
JSO said the man’s door was cracked open, and officers saw him pick up a rifle case, open it, and reach into it, which led to nine officers firing their weapons.
“And then we heard pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, about nine gunshots, and that’s when everybody started freaking out a little bit,” Hernandez said.
The man died at the scene.
JSO said this incident marked the 14th officer-involved shooting of this year and that the State Attorney’s Office is conducting its investigation into the matter.