Carjacking suspect shot by Jacksonville police officer

Police: Man seen carrying handgun during foot pursuit

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A person shot by an officer Wednesday morning near the La Quinta Inn off Baymeadows Road was a carjacking suspect carrying a black handgun, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Police said the man, a convicted felon under investigation in connection with other violent crimes, was shot in the ankle by Officer Jason Lederman, who fired three shots.

The officer was not injured.

The suspect ran from officers who confronted him and a woman as they approached a car stolen at gunpoint three days ago that was under surveillance at the hotel, authorities said. The man ran north in the parking lot along Dix Ellis Trail and jumped a fence to get away from pursuing officers and a K-9. He was crouched on the other side of the fence when he was shot, officers said.

Police said the man crawled to the ramp of I-95, where he surrendered. He was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. His name will not be released until Thursday morning.

As of 1:45 p.m., that ramp remained closed because it is inside a large crime scene that stretches from the hotel parking lot to the highway. The JSO said the ramp will remain closed "for an undetermined amount of time."

"The car is at one spot, the foot pursuit and then the discharge of the weapon, so it's a fairly lengthy scene," JSO Chief Mike Bruno said. "We're processing it as quickly as we can, but we want to make sure that we collect all the evidence to assist with the case."

Police said officers were first alerted by a tip that the car, stolen at gunpoint in Northwest Jacksonville, was at the hotel about 3 a.m. The woman who was with the suspect was questioned, but it isn't known if she will face any charges.

A plumber working in the area said he heard shots just after 9:30 a.m. He saw only one police car in the area at the time, but within minutes officers were swarming the area.

"I heard like four shots, and then I went back to work," Ken Quinn said. "I hear shots, I get out of there."

Lederman, a 19-year veteran of the JSO, was one of five officers involved in a 2010 shooting of a bank robbery suspect on Baymeadows Road in which 42 shots were fired. The suspect was killed and a woman and her 2-year-old son who were in a restaurant drive-through at the time were injured.

The investigation found that Lederman had acted within guidelines, but two of the other officers involved -- both rookies -- resigned before they could be fired.

This is the fifth police-involved shooting since the beginning of the year, all five of them within the past six weeks.

"It speaks to the nature of how dangerous the job is that the officers do, and how in just really a second, things can changed drastically," Bruno said. "They know they are working and dealing with and attempting to apprehend a violent felon. They know his criminal history. They know the additional charges that we're working toward securing as well as the charge of carjacking, so it speaks heavily toward the dangers that the officers face on a daily basis."


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Tarik anchors the 4, 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. weekday newscasts and reports with the I-TEAM.