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The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has “good video” of a teenager who shot the driver of a white Mercedes sedan around 1:30 p.m. Monday, sending it crashing into the bedroom of a duplex in the Secret Cove neighborhood.
The driver and a bicyclist were killed.
“I want to make it abundantly clear to those that were there: We have your picture,” Sheriff Grady Judd said at an evening news conference.
“We know that one person was the trigger man. We know that the others were involved… It’s important that you understand that you can be a suspect, or you can be a witness.”
The victims: Judd declined to name the victims until their families had been notified.
He said the driver was a young Black male, apparently in his teens, who was shot in the chest. He had “life is a gamble” tattooed on one of his hands and “the world is yours” tattooed on his torso.
The other victim was a 38-year-old man who was riding an electric bicycle to his brother’s home next to the crash site. He was pinned under the Mercedes AMG as it careened through the concrete-block wall, killing him instantly.
No one was in the home at 1020 Pirates Way at the time of the crash.
An attempted ripoff: Judd said the crash was first reported by the Mercedes’ onboard crash detection system, and emergency responders initially thought it was a car accident.
“They rushed in, pulled the young Black male out of the vehicle and started doing life-saving measures, when they discovered he’s got a bullet hole in his chest,” Judd said.
“Then, during the same time frame, the people discover there’s another deceased person underneath the car.”
Shortly after, Judd said investigators found two gallon bags of marijuana and a “thick wad of cash” in the vehicle.
“We suspect, at these early stages, that our man with these tattoos came there to sell marijuana and these other folks planned to rip him off, and we ended up with a shooting.”
The suspects: “Our persons of interest right now are Black males — or at least it appears to be on the video — and they’re all young,” Judd said.
“Some of them appear to be just kids.”
The sheriff said the suspects fled on foot. The person who fired the deadly shot is facing double murder charges. The other participants’ charges will depend on their level of cooperation.
“Our homicide team’s out working now,” Judd said. “We have good video. We’ll be able to identify them.”
Video evidence: Judd would not specify where the video footage came from, but apparently, the incident began near the gas station at Reynolds Road and Ned Engle Boulevard.
A portion of the Reynolds Food Mart parking lot with a dumpster was cordoned off with crime scene tape. “We found some evidence there,” Judd said.
Judd said the driver stopped near the entrance to the Secret Cove neighborhood. Several young men approached the car and spoke with the driver through the window. Then the car took off at a high rate of speed.
“Between where he was shot and the end of the street — which is seconds — he obviously lost consciousness or the ability to control the vehicle,” Judd said.
Report a tip: Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Polk County Sheriff’s Office at 863-298-6200 or reach out anonymously to Heartland Crime Stoppers at 1-888-400-TIPS or via their mobile app.
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