It happened about 15 miles from where I live and in Lakeland Fla. where I go to work everyday. I was walking out of a restaurant about 1:00pm and cops, with sirens blarin', were running everywhere. The local radio reported a manhunt but didn't have the details other than officers were down. Turns out that I had driven through the same intersection earlier about 30 mins. before the shooting. Left me feeling sort of weird. I hit the interstate and there are cops everywhere..... Sheriff's dept., local police, F.B.I., Highway patrol, and 8 helicopters overhead. Traffic was at a standstill on the interstate and all officers were carrying shotguns. Everything was shut down including the overpasses and the 3 local schools were in lockdown. Believe it or not, there were actually parents complaining about the lockdown. The kids weren't released until about 10pm. Suspect still at large. Next day, early morning, during a live TV interview at the scene with the Sheriff, you could hear shot being fired and the Sheriff excused himself and took off. Came back about an hour later and said... "God will be the judge and jury for our suspect. ... we've got our man." By now we know that Officer Matt Williams has been killed, shot 8 times, his dog "Diogi" was shot once and also killed. One other officer is hit in the leg but will be ok. I believe that I've met officer Williams, he looks awfully familiar on TV. Funeral services are Tues in Lakeland where Officer Williams and his dog have been cremated and will be interred together. Officer williams left 3 kids including twin 16 year old boys. Newspaper accounts say that there were a total of 110 rounds fired with 68 hitting the suspect. He had dug a hole under a fallen oak tree covered in vines and the almost stepped on him before they saw him. Officers yelled for him to raise his hands and one went up..... the second command brought the other hand up with officer Williams service .45 in it. That was all she wrote and thankfully so. No wasted tax payer money and no long trial for officer Williams' family to endure. God Bless Officer Williams and his best friend Diogi.
therick
therick