NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – A Nassau County deputy shot and killed a 51-year-old man who rammed into a car full of people and drove off Friday afternoon, the sheriff said.
The deputy-involved shooting happened about 4 p.m. on Oneil-Scott Road, near Lonnies Lane, just north of State Road 200/A1A between Yulee and Fernandina Beach.
Sheriff Bill Leeper said Edward Courtenay was driving on the Intracoastal waterway bridge when he rammed the back of a car with three occupants, and then kept driving west.
The driver of the rear-ended car then followed Courtenay to the dead end of Oneil-Scott Road, Leeper said.
As Courtenay then turned around and rammed the vehicle a second time, Leeper said, Deputy Brandon Schmidt arrived at the scene and ordered the suspect to get out of his car.
At that point, investigators said, Courtenay backed up about 40 feet and then accelerated toward the deputy.
Fearing for his life, Schmidt fired into the speeding car, killing Courtenay, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Schmidt, a five-year veteran of the Sheriff's Office, and the three people inside the rear-ended vehicle were not injured.
A neighbor described what he saw after realizing something had happened up the road.
"I was chilling, laying down and about to take a nap when I heard cop cars going by and I'm, like, 'What in the world is all that noise about?' I come out and there's, like, 12 different cops flooring it down that way," James Woolard said. "I was, like, 'Oh my God. What's going on?'"
Maybelle Kirkland-Brown, who lives on the street, told News4Jax she couldn't believe what happened.
"It's concerning because you hear of these things way off, but you never know they can come in your own neighborhood. But today we experienced it in our own neighborhood," she said.
News4Jax learned that Courtenay only had two traffic tickets on his record.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the deputy-involved shooting. Leeper said Schmidt has been placed on desk work pending the investigation.