Lt. Chad Anderson (left) was shot once in the arm and the bullet went into his chest, officials say. Deputy Craig Smith (right) was shot four times in his right arm.
Polk County Sheriff’s Office photos
Two Florida sheriff’s deputies were seriously hurt when they confronted a gunman linked to an anti-government faction known as the Moorish Sovereign Citizens, investigators say.
The suspect died in the resulting firefight, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. His identity has not been released.
Polk County Deputy Craig Smith is listed in stable condition with four gunshot wounds to his right arm, and Lt. Chad Anderson is in critical but stable condition with a more serious chest wound, officials said.
The gunfight occurred around 12:20 a.m. Saturday, April 27, in the 63-acre Hunt Fountain Park near Lakeland, about a 35-mile drive northwest of Tampa.
A deputy spotted a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot more than two hours after the park closed and tried to question a man in the driver’s seat, officials said.
“He rolled the window down a small amount and she was trying to talk to him and ask him why he was in the park and he wouldn’t cooperate. She asked him to get out of the car and he wouldn’t get out of the car,” Judd said at the press conference.
“Lt. Chad Anderson arrives and Deputy Sheriff Craig Smith. … So they started trying to take our suspect out of the vehicle when he produced a gun and started shooting. Lt. Chad Anderson was shot once in the arm and it went through and into his chest. Our deputy Craig Smith has four gunshot wounds. They went down immediately.”
The suspect’s vehicle was moving at the time, and Smith and Anderson were standing close together at the car’s door, Judd said.
Anderson “got some rounds off” and additional shots were fired by backup deputies. The total number of rounds fired remains under investigation, officials said.
“We killed the suspect. We killed him graveyard dead,” Judd said.
Investigators have learned the suspect was a Moorish sovereign citizen, a movement that maintains “individual citizens hold sovereignty over, and are independent of, the authority of federal and state governments,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The suspect was believed to be living out of his vehicle and had been involved in “another encounter” with law enforcement at a county park in March, officials said.