A Florida sheriff’s deputy was killed and two other deputies were wounded as they attempted to approach the first officer in what police called an ambush shooting inside a home.
The three deputies were shot Friday night at a home in Eustis, Florida, Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell said at a news conference at the scene.
Two suspects were killed and a third was wounded when police stormed into the home to rescue a deputy sheriff who was trapped after being shot. Grinnell said.
Police received a report of a disturbance around 8 p.m.
Two officers went a few houses down from the caller’s home and found a door that appeared to have been kicked down.
“When officers entered the home, an intense exchange of gunfire ensued,” Grinnell said.
One deputy was shot and trapped inside the building, while the other was evacuated.
More officers arrived and teamed up to enter the home and try to rescue the deputy, but were met with a “hail of bullets” and another deputy was shot, Grinnell said.
The male deputy who was shot first and trapped in his car did not survive.
The second deputy sustained a wound in the shoulder but is in stable condition.
Grinnell said a third deputy was shot multiple times in the armpit, groin and abdomen and was undergoing surgery, but he did not immediately release the names of the officers involved.
“It’s really scary when you have people in the house and you can’t get to them,” Grinnell said, describing how SWAT officers had again entered a home in Eustis, about 37 miles northwest of Orlando.
“We have the equipment to do that, we have this equipment to do that, and we destroyed this equipment to get into the house and get the deputies out of there,” Grinnell said. “It was a chaotic situation from start to finish.”
Grinnell said two suspects were found deceased when SWAT entered the home and the third was taken to the hospital.
He said the home had no history of violent crimes and there was nothing to indicate the conditions were unsafe.
“They were ambushed,” Grinnell said.
