JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A judge denied bond for a man accused of shooting at officers Friday.
Jonathan Campbell was arrested Friday and charged with three counts of attempted murder of a police officer after he pulled a gun on detectives attempting to serve a narcotics search warrant, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
According to police, Campbell is a member of a known Jacksonville gang. Four others were also arrested Friday in connection with the search warrant, police said.
JSO's narcotics team had been investigating an apartment they believed drugs were sold for several weeks and Friday they ended up uncovering gang activity.
JSO Director Tom Hackney said SWAT team members went to the River Oaks Apartments on Harts Road on the Northside to serve the warrant, which was the result of an investigation into drugs being sold out of an apartment in the complex. The investigation was a joint operation between the DEA and JSO's gang unit and narcotics division.
Before serving the warrant, detectives saw Campbell leave the apartment and get into the driver's seat of a car in the parking lot. They quickly determined he was one of the subjects of the investigation and approached the car, Hackney said.
As the three detectives got close to the car, the man lifted his shirt and pulled a machine gun pistol from his waistband, Hackney said. The detectives jumped into the car to grab the gun and as they were grabbing the gun, the man fired one shot, Hackney said.
The bullet fired into the ground outside the car and nobody was hurt, Hackney said. The detectives did not return fire.
"It really highlights some of the dangers that police officers face," Hackney said. "These are our SWAT team members serving search warrants -- some of the best trained and brightest that we have that are out here. They do a very, very dangerous job."
"You should know better than to pull a gun on a police officer," he said. "It's pretty well obvious. Luckily, nobody was hurt today."
Campbell was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder against a law enforcement officer, Hackney said.
"The subject is a member of a Jacksonville gang. He's a 1,000 Block gang member," said Hackney. "We're still working through this."
"Shooting at police, he's lucky that he's alive," said News4Jax Crime and Safety Analyst Gil Smith. "This was the SWAT team that was in action and they are some of the most-trained officers in the police department, and once he exposed a weapon and aimed it police, very fortunate that he wasn't killed right then. I mean, it would have been justified if they had."
According to Hackney, several pounds at least of cocaine and marijuana were found inside the apartment, along with several guns, drug scales and possible drug-making equipment.
"The gang members are involved in the drug sales and part of that drug sale culture is guns and violence," said Hackney. "The certified gangs that we have around the city, they have cars so they travel around the city. There's not one side of the side that worse than another, or has a larger concentration. These folks live through out the county and obviously our jurisdiction covers that, so we work to make sure we are investigating that as we need to be."
Four others were arrested and will face gun and drug-related charges, Hackney said. Police have not released the names of those arrested.
"It should be no surprise that drugs and gangs go together and drugs and gangs and violence all go together as well," Hackney said. "This is the nexus of all three of those things here today."
A woman who told News4Jax she was the resident of the apartment wouldn't give her name but said, "You're not my friend if you're going to do me like that when I clearly said 'No one's supposed to be in my house,' and you do me like that."