A chase involving units of the Florida Highway Patrol ended in an FHP-involved shooting at the Hammock Beach Resort, with one suspect killed and another injured. Both suspects are women. The injured woman was air-lifted by Flagler County Fire Flight, the emergency helicopter.
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly, who was just leaving the scene at close to 7 p.m., would not confirm that a person was killed, only that a person was air-lifted. (FlaglerLive learned of the fatality through a different, authoritative source, not associated with the Sheriff’s Office, and unauthorized to speak on the matter.)
Flagler County Sheriff’s personnel were not involved in the shooting, nor were they in the vicinity of the shooting when it happened. Units did converge there, with the motorcycle unit first to arrive, but after the shooting.
“No law enforcement personnel were injured,” Staly said. He described the incident as “an FHP trooper involved shooting near the beach ramp on 16th Avenue.”
Staly said “the community is not in danger,” with the incident contained and essentially over but for the investigation, which will be conducted by the Florida Highway Patrol and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
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“Further details will have to be released by the Florida Highway Patrol,” the sheriff said. “I have more information but it would be more appropriate for this information to come from FHP. I”m not at liberty to speak on behalf of FHP. Likewise I wouldn’t want them speaking on any of our cases.” Two calls to FHP’s Sgt. Dylan Bryan in the Office of Public Affairs were not returned before this article initially published.
FlaglerLive learned separately that the incident was related to a state drug-interdiction team working in the area before the chase triggered.
As a result of the incident, Hammock Dunes Parkway and 16th Avenue East to the beach access point, and the parking area for the Atlantic Grill, are all closed to traffic and the public for now. “That area will probably be closed for some time,” the sheriff said.
Sheriff’s deputies are assisting with scene control. As for hotel guests, “A number of people are in the area but not in the scene,” the sheriff said, with no guests affected. “I would encourage the public to not come to that area, they’re just going to get into a traffic jam on 16th avenue East, and there’s not much to see frankly.”
It is the first law enforcement shooting involving a fatality in Flagler County since August 2014, when Corey Tanner was shot and killed by U.S. Marshalls as he was running out of a house in Espanola, the officers mistaking a bottle of perfume in his hand for a gun. Three Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies were involved in a shooting in the Mondex in July 2020, but the suspect, Steven Eugene Barneski, survived. He is serving a seven-year sentence in state prison on aggravated assault and other charges.
