Jacksonville, Florida: Officer Shoots Man Police Say Was Firing a Gun at River City Apartments

Jacksonville officers shot a 38 year old man on Sunday evening, November 1, at an apartment complex near River City Marketplace after answering a call about a person firing a gun in the complex, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said. The man was in life threatening condition at the time of the sheriff's briefing, the Florida Times-Union reported.

What officers say happened

The call came in at about 6 p.m. to the Levi at River City apartments in the 13000 block of Broxton Bay Drive, near Airport Center Drive. The caller said somebody was shooting a gun in the apartment complex. Undersheriff Mark Romano said officers made contact with the caller at her front door, and as they were speaking with her, they were startled by six more loud gunshots.

The man then came around a corner from a dark area, Romano said. One of the officers asked if he was doing the shooting. He ignored the officers and started walking up the stairs. He kept ignoring commands to get his hands up and get on the ground, and when he reached the top of the second floor he pulled out a gun, Romano said. He did not comply with more demands to drop the weapon and was shot when he turned toward the officers.

Romano said the man is 38 and lives at the complex. No names have been released. Officers were not clear on what he was shooting at or why. "We don't know why he was doing what he was doing," Romano said, and he said he did not know whether the caller knew the man. News4JAX reported the man was critically injured in the officer involved shooting on Broxton Bay Drive.

The sheriff on a scary night for residents

Sheriff T.K. Waters said it was a scary night for the residents of the complex. "Unfortunately you don't feel real secure when there's a guy out there randomly firing shots in your apartment complex, but that threat is now over, it's stopped and they can rest assured we'll come running when they need us," Waters said.

The shooting closed a weekend in which six shootings since Saturday left two people dead and about 15 injured across Jacksonville, Action News Jax reported. Two of those shootings, at Halloween parties early on Sunday, killed a 17 year old girl and a 20 year old man and wounded 11 other people, and they are covered in a separate Orbit Post article.

The fifteenth police shooting this year

The police shooting was the 15th time a suspect had been shot by Jacksonville officers this year, nine of them fatally, according to Times-Union records. The paper noted that the numbers were nearly the same as a year earlier, when officers shot their 15th person on November 1, 2025, with 10 of those fatal. The year 2025 ended with 17 police shootings, 11 of them fatal.