CALLAHAN and BRANDON, FL -- One deputy is in "very critical" condition and another is out of the hospital after two separate shootings.

Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper is urging people to pray for Deputy Joshua Moyers. The sheriff's office says Moyers, 29, was shot and wounded around 2:30 Friday morning during a traffic stop on U.S. 301 in Callahan. A 35-year-old man named Patrick McDowell is suspected of the crime. A massive manhunt for McDowell is going on in Northeast Florida. (photo below).

Meanwhile, a Hillsborough deputy is out of the hospital after a very close call as he was shot during a domestic dispute. 33-year-old Deputy Adriel Gonzalez responded to a domestic incident on Taylor Road in Brandon, in which an elderly woman reported her adult son had attacked her. The sheriff's office says 48-year-old James Jackson went in a room and, as Gonzalez tried to talk to him, fired through a door, wounding the deputy in the arm.

Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister says the bullet hit Gonzalez' vest just below the arm hole. Had it gone a bit higher, it could have sliced through his vital organs. "By the grace of God, the deputy was shot... at the very tip of his ballistic vest." Gonzalez and another deputy cleared family members out of the house, beginning a standoff with Jackson that lasted most of the day. Deputies fired on Jackson, Chronister says, when the SWAT team entered the home and found him still "armed and combative" after attempting to defuse the situation with hundreds of phone calls to the house.

Gonzalez went to a hospital and was released. Another deputy, Sankar Montoute, 38, fired at Jackson, who was taken to a hospital. Montoute's actions will be investigated by FDLE.

Photos: Hillsborough Sheriff's Office, Nassau Sheriff's Office, Canva

Calendar Events