PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – A man discovered inside a stolen vehicle in Sawgrass was “gravely wounded” after firing shots at a deputy on Wednesday, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office. The suspect then locked himself in the vehicle, Shoar said. About 2:15 p.m., Shoar said, a SWAT team used tear gas to extricate the suspect out of the vehicle. “We were lucky, you know, that we weren’t in the parking lot when that was going on, basically, is what I was thinking," Suggs said. Zach Goodall was in the parking lot at the time.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office is suing a former employee suspected of embezzling more than $700,000 while she oversaw the agency’s budget and finances. In a seven-page lawsuit filed Jan. 14, Sheriff David Shoar alleges that former finance director Raye A. Brutnell defrauded the agency by making dozens of payments totaling over $700,000 from bank accounts controlled by the Sheriff’s Office to a series of accounts created for fictitious vendors. It goes on to say that she deposited the proceeds into bank accounts controlled either by herself or her family members. She said she did not realize the magnitude of the fraud until confronted with the dollar amount. Brian Haas, the state attorney for Florida’s 10th Judicial Circuit, is prosecuting the criminal case at the request of Gov.