2 Polk deputies injured in Lakeland Park shooting, gunman killed, sheriff says

LAKELAND — Two Polk sheriff's deputies were seriously injured and the man who shot them was killed when a shooting broke out in a public park Saturday, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

Judd praised his deputies as heroes and said they were shot while trying to pull an uncooperative man from his car after he refused orders to get out on his own. They discovered the vehicle early Saturday in a county park after it closed overnight.

“They killed him dead in the cemetery,” Judd told reporters Saturday, saying preliminary information from investigators suggested the slain man fired first.

“He asked for a shootout, we gave him a shootout,” the sheriff said. “And he’ll never be involved in a shooting again because he’s dead.”

Lt. Chad Anderson was hospitalized in critical but stable condition after a bullet pierced his arm and entered his chest, Judd said. According to the sheriff's office, Deputy Craig Smith was in stable condition in the intensive care unit after being shot four times in the right arm.

Both deputies responded to a colleague's call for assistance after the man in the car refused to cooperate when the colleague attempted to question him, Judd said. The sheriff's office had ordered additional patrols in the area because there had been a number of carjackings.

Before the shooting began, a total of four officers and two trainees tried to get the man to get out of his vehicle. Judd said Anderson and Smith were standing at the car door trying to pull the man out when the man pulled out a gun and opened fire, the sheriff said. The deputies fired back.

The sheriff did not immediately release the name of the man killed in the shooting.

Brian Haas, the prosecutor whose jurisdiction includes Polk County, said his office is investigating.

“We want to move as quickly as possible, but thoroughness is the most important thing,” Haas told reporters.