CLEARWATER, Fla. – A Clearwater woman successfully fought off an armed intruder and escaped her home Friday morning before Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed the suspect after a barricade situation, according to local law enforcement officials.
The incident began at 6:44 a.m. when authorities received a 911 call from a neighboring home at 1052 Candler Road. Investigators stated that an unidentified man armed with a knife forced his way into the woman’s garage and assaulted her. The victim managed to break free, flee the property, and alert authorities from a neighbor’s house.
When Pinellas County deputies arrived and began securing a perimeter around the residence, they witnessed the garage door close.
“From that point on, they worked this as a barricade situation, believing that the armed subject was still inside the residence,” Clearwater Police Chief Eric Gandy said during a media briefing. “They hailed the residence multiple times using multiple means and finally formed a contact team around 7:48 a.m.”
The tactical contact team surrounded the home and repeatedly ordered anyone inside to surrender, receiving no response. Deputies then breached a sliding glass door and deployed a drone into the residence to locate the suspect, but the drone scan yielded no contact.
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A team of deputies then entered the home to clear it room by room. The situation escalated rapidly as officers moved toward the back of the property.
“As they moved through a small laundry room to the garage, challenging all the way, they began to open the garage door and as they did, the suspect brandished a firearm in one hand and a flashlight in the other,” Chief Gandy stated. “He raised the firearm, shouted some expletives at the deputies, they opened fire and he was pronounced deceased about 15 minutes later.”
Neither the homeowner nor any of the responding deputies were injured during the assault or the subsequent shooting.
Authorities have not yet identified the deceased suspect, describing him only as a white male between 30 and 40 years old. A motive for the home invasion remains unclear, and investigators have not determined whether the suspect had any prior relationship with the victim.
Per standard protocol, the two deputies who opened fire will be placed on routine paid administrative leave.
Detectives assigned to the Pinellas County Use of Deadly Force Investigative Task Force have taken over the shooting investigation. The independent task force was established in 2020 to ensure that officer-involved shootings in the county are thoroughly and objectively investigated by an outside agency rather than the department involved in the incident.
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