Wife: Father of 2 shot in home after failed dognapping

Young son was walking dog outside home, mother says

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A father of two is recovering after shots were fired into his Newtown home, striking him in his shoulder. His wife says it happened after someone tried to take the family's dog.

Several rounds were shot into the home Tuesday night while the father was inside with his wife and children. On Wednesday, he had been released from the hospital.

The shooting was one of four reported in the Jacksonville area within a four hour time frame on Tuesday. In one of the shootings, a man was killed.

The father's wife and children said they didn't feel safe staying at a house and checked in to a hotel. The wife, who asked not to be identified, told News4Jax the shots were fired after some tried to take the family's dog from her young son who was walking their pet in the front yard.

"He wouldn't give it to them, which is why he came into the house to tell me about it. Literally right as he opened the door, I saw him standing there, then pulled him away because I heard the shots before I saw it," she said. "Everything happened so quick. I turned around and saw my husband on the ground after he got hit."

The wife said one of those bullets entered her daughter's bedroom and was just inches from striking her in the head.

Paula Lee, a neighbor, moved to Jacksonville 30 years ago from New York. She's been living in the Newtown neighborhood for five years. She said violence happens frequently in the area.

"Every night there's a fight or somebody's pulling a knife on somebody," Lee said. "You hear gunfire all the time. I mean, I can be sitting here on my porch and all of a sudden you hear pop, pop, pop."

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's crime mapping tool shows 54 incidents within the past four weeks in a half mile radius of the home. More than half the reported crimes were assaults and batteries.

Police have not announced an arrest in the shooting.


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