{"id":995,"date":"2021-09-06T03:58:41","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T03:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=995"},"modified":"2021-09-06T03:58:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T03:58:41","slug":"florida-gunman-kills-4-including-baby-wounds-11-year-old-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=995","title":{"rendered":"Florida gunman kills 4 including baby, wounds 11-year-old girl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A self-described survivalist in body armour shot and killed four people, including a woman and her three-month-old baby boy in her arms, before surrendering to police in central Florida on Sunday, officials said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/assets\/news\/253612\/eight_col_car.jpg?1611261214\" alt=\"Police car on the street at night\" width=\"720\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0123RF<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The shooter, identified as Bryan Riley, 33, a former US Marine, also wounded an 11-year-old girl who underwent surgery for seven gunshot injuries, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told a news conference.<\/p>\n<p>Riley, who had no connection to the victims, engaged in a shootout with police before giving up, and later tried to grab a police officer&#8217;s gun while being treated in the hospital for his own gunshot wound, before being subdued again, Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>A veteran of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Riley was working as a bodyguard and a security guard. His girlfriend of four years told investigators he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and occasional depression, Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>About a week ago his mental health worsened and he told his girlfriend he had started speaking with God, Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He said at one point to our detectives: &#8216;They begged for their lives and I killed them anyway&#8217;,&#8221; Judd said at a second news conference.<\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1434608428442394633&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rnz.co.nz%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F450870%2Fflorida-gunman-kills-4-including-baby-wounds-11-year-old-girl&amp;sessionId=77710068c07024896e37c1f8c7dd39bb8684a900&amp;siteScreenName=rnz_news&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=1890d59c%3A1627936082797&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1434608428442394633\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Riley also told sheriff&#8217;s deputies he was high on methamphetamine, Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>The shooter first appeared randomly at the house where the shooting occurred on Saturday night, making nonsensical statements, but left by the time police responded.<\/p>\n<p>He returned early Sunday morning, killing a 40-year-old man, the 33-year-old mother and her baby boy, Judd said. In the home next door, he also killed the 62-year-old mother of the woman, Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In addition to that, if he&#8217;s not evil enough, he shot and killed the family dog,&#8221; Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>Deputies responding to reports of two volleys of automatic gunfire arrived to find the suspect unarmed outside, wearing camouflage and body armour. Riley then went back inside and &#8220;we heard another volley, and a woman scream, and a baby whimper,&#8221; Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>A gunfight ensued before he came out unarmed and was arrested.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It would have been nice if he would have come out with a gun &#8230; we would have shot him up a lot. But he didn&#8217;t because he was a coward,&#8221; Judd said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When someone chooses to give up, we take them into custody peacefully.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b><i>&#8211; Reuters<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A self-described survivalist in body armour shot and killed four people, including a woman and her three-month-old baby boy in her arms, before surrendering to police in central Florida on Sunday, officials said. Photo:\u00a0123RF The shooter, identified as Bryan Riley, 33, a former US Marine, also wounded an 11-year-old girl who underwent surgery for seven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,177],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-world","tag-featured"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions\/997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}