Parents describe scramble to protect children at park during deputy-involved shooting

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Karl Johnston was watching his 9-year-old daughter play in a soccer game Saturday when he heard a crash nearby. He looked up and saw a man running down the sidewalk right next to the field full of children.

That man had a gun.

“The moment I knew something was wrong was when a gentleman said, ‘Get down!’ When I looked up, he came running and firing back at the police,” Johnston said. “Everyone panicked and got all of the kids on the ground, moving away from the shooter.”

Johnston said the shooter kept running as he was chased by deputies and “there was a large volley of shots.”

“Then someone said, ‘They got him,’” Johnston said.

Another parent who was at the park to watch a youth football game said everyone heard two to three shots and froze and about 10 seconds later there was a barrage of gunfire — maybe 10-12 shots.

He said that’s when they quickly grabbed all the children and headed for their cars.

The deputy-involved shooting near Davis Park in Ponte Vedra Beach left many families traumatized. They had been trying to enjoy a morning of youth sports. Instead, they witnessed a police chase and shooting.

St. Johns County Sheriff Rob Hardwick said the incident began as a burglary to a storage unit on Palm Valley Road early Saturday morning. It ended about three hours later when deputies disabled a pickup truck near Davis Park to stop a police pursuit of a burglary suspect.

The sheriff said the man ran from the truck and took a “defensive posture” between two vehicles at the end of the parking lot near the park filled with children.

“This is one of those cases where all the training comes together, where our deputy sheriffs’ backs were to the children and the families, and they were engaging the target in the opposite direction,” Hardwick said.

Hardwick said multiple rounds were fired, and none of the deputies were hit by gunfire. The suspect was airlifted to a trauma center in Clay County. Hardwick said it was still unclear to investigators if the man shot at deputies, but Johnston said he saw the man fire his gun.

“He came running right by us. We were probably about 15 yards away from the shooter when he came down running. But he was not firing at the field. He was firing back at the police running down the sidewalk,” Johnston said. “Everybody grabbed their kids, went off on the side of the field, laying down, covering their children, trying to protect them.”

Johnston said the children were screaming and crying – so were some of the parents.

“It is a difficult time as a parent when you are trying to get all of the kids down. You are screaming, you are crying. You were trying to get by them to protect them and then you hear this large volley of shots,” Johnston said. “You need to stay low. But, of course, the ground was soaking wet and muddy.”

Johnston said the experience left him and many families shell-shocked.

“You always think something like that would never happen here,” Johnston said. “But he was literally right by our soccer field.”

The fields were evacuated by deputies and all events were canceled for the day.

“It breaks my heart when our deputy sheriffs tell you that as they’re showing up for backup, there are children prone out on a soccer field,” an emotional Hardwick said. “Our community was phenomenal in their response and their understanding (as we closed down the parks).”

Hardwick said they are still working to identify the suspect. The Sheriff’s Office asked the public to share any information they might have about the incident by emailing CrimeTips@sjso.org.