Suspect reportedly had been fired recently after serving as maintenance worker at condominium complex
Sarasota Police Department detectives are continuing their investigation into a shooting incident that occurred on Friday, July 9, just before midnight, at 1800 Benjamin Franklin Drive on Lido Key, the department has reported.
The address is the location of L’Elegance on Lido Beach.
Sarasota police officers responded to the condominium complex after receiving a report of shots having been fired, Public Information Officer Genevieve Judge wrote in a news release. “Officers heard rapid fire coming from the condo building and entered the building to look for the shooter,” she added. Callers told Dispatch “that a recently fired maintenance man, age 58, was shooting the gun,” Judge continued. Witnesses told officers he was disgruntled over losing his job, she added.
The preliminary investigation has shown that the former employee went to the unit of a man and woman in the same building, “in an attempt to hurt the man,” Judge pointed out. As the man and woman fled the condominium, she noted, the former employee allegedly fired multiple shots at them before the former employee went to a parking garage and fired multiple rounds into two unoccupied vehicles.
“The man and woman were able to escape without serious injury,” Judge wrote.
Then the former employee barricaded himself inside a condominium unit, she reported.
In a July 10 news release, Judge noted that members of the department’s SWAT and Crisis Negotiation Unit were “working to negotiate a peaceful outcome.” They had been present since 1 a.m. that day, she added.
Just after 7:30 a.m. on July 10, Judge reported that the suspect “was found deceased from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Benjamin Franklin Drive was closed in both directions from South Lido Park to Taft Drive from approximately 12:30 a.m. until 9 a.m. on July 10, she noted. Residents and visitors were asked to avoid the area and stay indoors.
Sarasota police officers and criminalistics technicians remained at the condominium comples until about 12:30 p.m. on July 10, to process the scene, Judge added.
Anyone with information relevant to this case is asked to call the Sarasota Police Department Criminal Investigations Division at 941-263-6070, leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers by calling 941-366-TIPS, or going online at www.sarasotacrimestoppers.com.