Former Marine killed 4, including mom holding 3-month-old baby
Florida – According to a Florida sheriff, on Sunday a 33-year-old man fatally shot four people, including a mother and the 3-month-old baby she was cradling, and engaged in a massive gunfight with police and deputies before he was wounded and surrendered. An 11-year-old girl who was shot seven times survived.
Even after 33-year-old Bryan Riley was arrested Sunday morning, he was so aggressive that he tried to wrestle a gun from police as he lay on his hospital gurney, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a press conference.
According to Judd, Riley who is a former Marine serving as a sharpshooter in both Iraq and Afghanistan seemed to have targeted his victims at random and appeared to be suffering from mental health issues.
Riley’s girlfriend told authorities Riley had been slowly unraveling for weeks and repeatedly told her that he could communicate directly with God, Judd said.
“They begged for their lives and I killed them anyway,” Judd said Riley told them during an interrogation.
According to investigators, preliminary evidence shows 40-year-old Justice Gleason just happened to be an unlucky stranger out mowing his lawn Saturday night when Riley drove by his home in Lakeland, about 30 miles east of Tampa, saying God told him to stop because Gleason’s daughter was going to commit suicide.
A second, unidentified person also confronted Riley, telling him that story wasn’t true and warned they’d call the police if he didn’t leave, Judd said.