Two dead, two police officers shot after morning shootout in city streets

A fierce gun battle between a suspected killer and police unfolded during Wednesday morning’s rush hour near one of the city’s busiest intersections. The gunman and a man believed to be his victim died, and two officers were wounded in the shootout.

The shooting began just before 8 a.m. after the gunman killed a man in a retail business, police said. The gunman fled as police arrived in response to reports of a shooting, then stopped his car in the middle of the street and opened fire toward officers, Police Chief Nelson Moya said.

Moya described it as a “hellacious gun battle” that lasted about two minutes as officers and the gunman maneuvered for better firing positions.

Spent ammunition casings littered the road surrounding the gunman’s sedan as investigators worked at the scene.

Police found a body inside the business, Moya said. The names of the victim and the gunman were not immediately made public.

One officer was shot in the arm, and a second was shot in the leg, the chief said. Both officers were hospitalized and expected to recover.

Bullets pierced the area businesses during the shootout, which happened in East Gainesville about two miles east of the University of Florida campus. The area of the city has suffered in recent years from violent gun crime and is a focus of heavy police patrols. The nearby intersection of University Avenue and Waldo Road is heavily traveled during rush hour.

The owner of an auto repair store, Lorne Lattamier Green, 55, said bullets hit six cars parked out front, chipped the store’s glass and hit a door.

“ I start hearing a popping sound and [it] did not sound like gunfire,” said Green. He said the noises “got a little more frequent, more shots. It started hitting the glass here, and that’s when we realized, OK, it’s bullets, it’s shots. So, we all got down on the ground.”

Surveillance cameras at the auto repair store caught the suspected killer parking behind the restaurant and walking into a nearby hardware store, where the dead body was found. Green showed the video to a reporter before the Florida Department of Law Enforcement objected and ordered the reporter away from the scene.

Teejay Cole, a manager at a nearby KFC chicken fast-food restaurant, also had access to surveillance video from the KFC’s cameras and confirmed the shooter parked the car behind the restaurant.

“He was coming back out, the police followed him,” Cole said. “That’s how they end up being in the middle of the road. He jumped into his car, driving. He has his gun. You could see him with his gun and everything.”

Police taped off three blocks during their investigation. An elementary school was only blocks away.

“This is a busy, busy road,” said Tina Days, whose child goes to school nearby. “He could have killed anybody, could have got hurt and no sense of compassion about these babies at their school.”

Days said she received a call that the school her daughter attends was on lockdown, and she started trying to figure out what was happening.

Gainesville City Commissioners declared a gun violence crisis in 2023. The magazine Men’s Journal last year named Gainesville the No. 1 most dangerous college town in the United States.

The city allocated federal grant funds and worked with the Justice Department to address the issue. The police chief said the city has made progress and called Wednesday’s shooting “an anomaly.”

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Gabriel Velasquez Neira reports via Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporters can be reached at [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.