Suspect Caught in Killing of Fla. Deputy, Shooting of 2 Others

[TheeBadOne]

Cops Allegedly Ambushed by Suspect

PAISLEY, Fla. -- A felon accused of gunning down a sheriff's deputy and wounding two others was captured Wednesday after an intense daylong manhunt in the Ocala National Forest, officers said.

Jason Lee Wheeler, 29, was wounded in a gun fight with the officers who captured him in piney woods six miles from his home in rural Lake County, about 30 miles north of Orlando, at about 5 p.m., officers said.

"We were able to flush him out of the woods," said Lake County Sheriff Chris Daniels. He said he did not know the nature of Wheeler's wounds, and that none of the deputies who captured him were wounded.

Wheeler was removed from the woods on a stretcher aboard an airboat and was being taken to a hospital.

Deputies were responding to an assault complaint at about 8 a.m. when they were allegedly ambushed by Wheeler, Capt. Nick Pallitto said.

Deputy Wayne Koester died after being transferred to Florida Hospital Waterman in Tavares, Pallitto said. Deputies Tom McKane and Bill Crotty were each shot in the leg and are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Deputy Bill Crotty is the brother of Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty, said Orange County spokesman Steve Triggs. "He's going to be OK," Triggs said.

Authorities from Volusia, Seminole and Lake counties and the Florida Highway Patrol worked together to find the Wheeler, Pallitto said. Earlier during the search Pallitto said. "It's an intensive manhunt and we're going to get this guy."

"You could hear shotguns, you could hear pistols. It sounded like a gun battle, and it went on for several minutes," said neighbor Paulette McKinnon. McKinnon said Wheeler's longtime girlfriend was with the deputies when the shooting began.

McKinnon, who identified the woman as Sara, said Sara came to her house at the corner of Georgia Street and Hilda Avenue this morning asking to use her phone. Wheeler had held her hostage without food for four days, she told McKinnon.

"She had bruises all over her," including on her wrists and ankles, McKinnon said. Sara told McKinnon she had had friends take her two small children to a motel earlier this morning.

The deputies who responded inspected the house, found no sign of Jason Wheeler and thought he had left, she said.

"The last thing I said to them was, 'Please be careful. He's crazy,'" McKinnon said.

They assured Sara it was safe and were driving her back down to the house on Hilda Avenue when the shooting began, McKinnon said.

"Apparently he was lying in the woods, watching the house, knowing the police would bring her back there. And I think he meant to kill her," McKinnon said.

Wheeler had recently warned a police officer that if police ever came to his house again, there would be a gun battle, McKinnon said.

Officers cordoned off the area around Wheeler's home on Hilda Avenue in a rural neighborhood in the southeast portion of the Ocala National Forest. Along State Road 42, officers checked drivers and looked into vehicles. Traffic was backed up in all directions.

Wheeler may have fled the scene on a motorcycle, according to some reports. A Honda 250 motorcycle was found shortly after the shooting at a landfill near Spring Creek Elementary School. School officials locked down the facility and nearby Spring Creek Elementary, school district spokesperson Janice Karst said.

The schools did not release children to their parents until law enforcement decides it was safe to do so, Karst said. Children were served lunch in their classrooms today. The district is also considered extending the school day if needed, she said.

A Spring Creek kindergarten class on a field trip to the Paisley Post Office and library this morning became stranded when their school went on lockdown, district officials said. Postal workers kept the children inside their building, where they awaited word it was safe for children to return to school.

Wheeler, who moved between the Ohio towns of Defiance, Napoleon and Grelton as well as Fort Lauderdale during the mid-1990s, has been arrested at least four times in Florida, including once in Lake County, records show.

The Lake County case involved charges of fleeing and attempting to elude deputies, driving with a suspended license, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, all misdemeanors. He pleaded no contest, was convicted in October 2001 and was sentenced to six months of probation and a $50 fine. He was also ordered to attend driving school.

Wheeler's trouble with the law in Florida began in November 1994, when Fort Lauderdale police arrested him on a charge of possessing marijuana. Wheeler, who was 19 at the time, pleaded no contest, was convicted and sentenced to six months in the county jail.

A year later, in October 1995, the Davie Police Department in South Florida charged Wheeler with possession of cocaine and resisting an officer with violence, both felonies. He also was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, also misdemeanors. He pleaded no contest to some of the charges and was sentenced to six months in the county jail. Records on how the cocaine charge, the most serious offense, was disposed of were not immediately available.

Broward County deputy sheriffs arrested Wheeler in November 1995 on a charge of violating his probation from previous cases and resisting arrest without violence, a misdemeanor. How that case was settled was not immediately available.

Koester is the first Florida law-enforcement officer to die in the line of duty this year and the 11th nationwide, according to The Officer Down Memorial Page. Six have been killed by gunfire. Last year, 12 officers died in Florida.

The last Lake County officer to die in the line of duty was Deputy William J. Marie. Marie was chief pilot for the Lake County Sheriff's Office who died in a helicopter crash while flying a new department helicopter back from Connecticut in March 1994.

The previous year, Deputy Jean Daugharty died in a traffic accident while responding to a domestic violence call in Sorrento. She was the first female officer to die in a traffic accident.

In 1959, Mount Dora police officer Clinton Hyde was shot to death by a suspect

A bootlegger shot Leesburg police officer Jessie Beerbower to death in 1944.

And in 1924, Leesburg's first police chief, James Lee Hux, was also gunned downed by a bootlegger.