Officer-involved shooting occurred as SLC deputies address uptick in gunfire activity calls
ST. LUCIE COUNTY ― An officer-involved shooting Wednesday occurred as sheriff’s deputies are working to address an uptick in gunfire activity, Sheriff Ken Mascara said Thursday. No one was injured in the Wednesday incident.
The increase in shootings seems to have come following a fatal shooting months ago in Indiantown, according to Mascara. From August to December, Mascara said, there have been 609 calls reporting shooting activity experienced by sheriff's deputies and Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce police.
That, he said, doesn’t include shooting calls in Indian River and Martin counties “which also have been on an uptick all this year.”
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The early-September fatal shooting of Johnny Lee Green III, 20, of Fort Pierce, during a block party in Indiantown, “seemed to precipitate an uptick,” he said.
“It seems that Martin County individuals would come to St. Lucie County and shoot, St. Lucie County residents would go to Martin County and shoot and they would even go to Indian River County and shoot,” Mascara said. “It's going back and forth between our Treasure Coast counties since the summer.”
Mascara said his agency this month targeted “people and vehicles that we know on the Treasure Coast (are) behind most of this violence.”
The officer-involved shooting Wednesday happened about 6:45 p.m. in the 1200 block of North 17th Street, north of Orange Avenue.
Investigators were in marked and unmarked vehicles “in the area of our high-risk neighborhoods,” Mascara said.
Two detectives in an unmarked vehicle traveled west on Avenue K and saw a vehicle of interest or similar to one for which they were looking. The vehicle sped up, turning north on North 17th Street.
Mascara said a passenger leaned out and fired at least 13 times “in the direction of we don't know where.”
“Our deputies assumed it was them,” Mascara said. “Our deputies also were there to prevent a shooting of a house or an individual that takes place in this area.”
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Investigators got out and saw a person run, assumed the person was involved and a deputy fired once in that person’s direction but the person wasn’t struck. That person had a cell phone.
“Probably one of the most important lessons learned during this whole thing when the police say, 'Stop,' you should stop and obey their commands instead of running and turning with a cell phone,” Mascara said.
Mascara said he didn’t think detectives had planned to pull over the vehicle from which the gunfire originated.
“They just wanted to watch it because their goal was to identify and prevent shooting,” he said. “They were trying to catch up to it, see what the tag was, which they never even got the opportunity to do that. And maybe if they had a reason to stop that vehicle, stop it, identify who was in it, what they were doing, but they never got that opportunity.”
Such shooting scenes are chaotic, Mascara said.
“You're trying to identify who's doing it, where is it going?” Mascara said. “Who's the intended target, and a car leaving at a high speed and an individual running fast, they stopped their vehicle, went after the individual.”
Treasure Coast law-enforcement agencies are communicating about the shooting uptick and sharing information.
“We're identifying people of interest. We're identifying cars of interest,” Mascara said. “This month, we put together a plan that we were going to start targeting these areas that we identified as high risk.”
Mascara didn’t name any shooting victims besides Green.
However, shortly after the Green homicide, one man was fatally shot and another critically injured by gunfire in Fort Pierce. Officers patrolling the area of Avenue E and North 21st Street Sept. 7 heard gunfire and reported finding two men with gunshot wounds. Jonathan Joseph, 23, died of his injuries at a local hospital.
A 74-year-old woman was fatally shot in Stuart Thanksgiving Day as she sat in her home, but police don’t believe she was the intended target.
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A fatal shooting happened Dec. 3 in Indian River County; Stuart police investigated a nonfatal shooting the same day.
Asked why the shooting of one person would prompt others, Mascara said, “Gang retaliation.”
“They don't believe in the criminal-justice system,” he said. “They believe in street justice. And that's the way thugs work.”
Investigators described an uptick in shootings in 2006 as “gang warfare.”
There’s been an increase in gang activity in recent years, according to Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Brian Hester, among gangs in Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie and Indian River and Martin counties.
“What's concerning is they're young people, their minds haven't matured, they don't make good decisions,” Hester said. “They think in the moment only, and are trying to prove themselves.”
Will Greenlee is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Will on Twitter @OffTheBeatTweet or reach him by phone at 772-267-7926. E-mail him at will.greenlee@tcpalm.com
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This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Officer-involved shooting on North 17th Street
