Deputy killed, 2 others injured in ambush at home near Eustis
One Lake County Sheriff’s deputy was killed and two other deputies were injured Friday night in what Sheriff Peyton Grinnell described as an ambush at a residence near Eustis.
At a 1:30 a.m. Saturday news conference, which was livestreamed by Orlando TV stations, Grinnell explained that the case started about 8 p.m. Friday when deputies responded to a disturbance call at a home off County Road 439 north of State Road 44.
People at that home directed deputies to a disturbance at a different home nearby. Deputies saw what appeared to be a door kicked in, so they entered the residence to conduct a well-being check.
They walked into an ambush, Grinnell said, and were “met with a hail of gunfire.”
One deputy was shot and trapped inside the home. A second deputy retreated and quickly formed a rescue team, which re-entered the home. There was more gunfire, the sheriff said.
One deputy was shot in the shoulder and did not require surgery. He was in stable condition early Saturday. A second deputy was shot multiple times in the armpit and stomach area and was in serious/critical condition after surgery early Saturday.
The third deputy — the man who was trapped — died.
“It was a very violent scene,” the sheriff said. Two men inside the home were killed and a third was injured.
Grinnell did not release the deputies’ names or the names of the other people who were inside the home. The sheriff said the deputy who died was a veteran law officer, a military veteran, and a longtime agency employee. This is the first time since October 2005 that the Lake sheriff’s office has lost an employee in the line of duty.
The rescue team included not just deputies but tactical equipment that tore down walls in a desperate attempt to rescue the deputy who was trapped inside the residence.
“We tore the home apart,” Grinnell said. Once the scene was secured, deputies found multiple weapons inside, including handguns and long guns.
The sheriff said he was not sure how the two suspects inside the house died. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating, as is standard in cases like this. Multiple other agencies were on scene, including the FBI and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Marion Sheriff Billy Woods and State Attorney Bill Gladson were with Grinnell at the crime scene late Friday and into Saturday.