PANAMA CITY BEACH — One shooting, two police chases, three hit-and-run crashes, two school lockdowns, and at least six arrests; it was a busy 24 hours for law enforcement officers on Panama City Beach.
A miscommunication Wednesday morning led police and school officials to lock down two schools based on a mistaken belief that an armed man had taken one or more hostages.
The episode started with a car crash at
Police locked down nearby Arnold High School as a precaution, Whitman said, then locked down Breakfast Point Academy, which is connected by a walkway to Arnold, after a student at Arnold texted a parent about the lockdown, and that parent texted a parent of a Breakfast Point Academy student.
Somehow the Breakfast Point parent came to believe someone with a gun had taken one or more hostages at the elementary school and reported that to police.
“It was a miscommunication between a student, a parent and another parent,” Whitman said.
The Bay County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team was deployed to Breakfast Point, but
“We called them off before they even got here,” Whitman said.
Police have no reason to believe a weapon was ever involved, Whitman said.
Officers still are looking for the driver of the driver of the stolen car.
Second hit and run
Wednesday afternoon, an investigator with the beach police noticed a vehicle suspected in an unrelated hit-and-run. The driver attempted to escape when the officer attempted to make a traffic stop, Whitman said.
The driver led police on what Whitman described as a short pursuit through the Bid-a-Wee neighborhood. At one point the driver attempted to ram police cars with his vehicle.
The officer in pursuit called off the chase before the Dodge Durango turned on
“We were not actually in pursuit at the time of the crash,” Whitman said.
A 5-year-old boy in the van was hospitalized. Whitman learned later the boy, whose identity was not released as of Wednesday night, had been transferred by helicopter from a local hospital to a pediatric trauma center in
The driver of the
Police charged Combs with leaving the scene of a crash with great bodily injury, fleeing and eluding, habitual traffic violator, and three counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.
Early pursuit
In another incident, BCSO deputies arrested five
According to the Sheriff’s Office, one of the suspects shot at a man who came upon them as they were burglarizing his vehicle. The victim was not hit by the shot.
They fled the burglary, and evaded a deputy in the neighborhood before leading him on a chase down
The men fled into the woods when their truck got stuck, and deputies, with assistance from officers with the Panama City Beach Police, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Highway Patrol tracked them down and arrested them.
Lawrence Woodard, 21, Vaughtrial Jerger, 17, Keontal Watson, 17, Alphonso Brooks, 17, and Renard Andre O’Neil, 19, were charged with armed burglary and resisting officers without violence. They told deputies they had come from
Investigators determined O’Neil was the driver. He faces additional charges of felony fleeing and eluding, leaving the scene of a crash, driving with license suspended or revoked and petit theft.
Valerie Garman contributed to this report.