TALLAHASSEE – A former US marine has killed four people, including a woman and her three-month-old baby boy in her arms, before surrendering in Florida.
Reports in international media quoting local cops said the shooter, who is identified as Bryan Riley, also allegedly wounded an 11-year-old girl in a shootout near Tampa in central Florida on Sunday.
The 33-year-old suspect then engaged in a firefight with law enforcement officers before surrendering to authorities, he later attempted to take a weapon from a cop at a hospital, per reports.
More photos from the scene of the quadruple homicide in #Lakeland https://t.co/D6DOaLLc7u pic.twitter.com/KNuIIqNhXh
— Polk County Sheriff 🚔 Grady Judd (@PolkCoSheriff) September 5, 2021
Later, cops found four people dead including a 40-year-old man, a 3-month-old baby and the baby’s 33-year-old mother inside the home, and the baby’s 62-year-old grandmother in a second house on the property. The family’s dog was also fatally shot, cops said.
Meanwhile, the 11-year-old girl, who got injured, was airlifted to the local medical center for surgery.
Local cops described the suspect as a ‘survivalist’ and confessed to being on a banned substance. The suspect’s girlfriend told officials that he had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and had been acting erratically in the past week, saying that he was receiving visions from ‘God’.
The suspect lives around 20 miles from where the gruesome incident took place. Community officials in a presser said it did not appear to be any connection between the suspect and the victims, however, it is yet to be determined that struggled to explain why the suspect chose that particular family and property.
