MACCLENNY, Fla. – State investigators are looking into the deadly shooting in Macclenny over the weekend involving a relative of a retired Baker County Sheriff’s deputy, authorities said Wednesday.
Deputies answering a shooting call about 4 p.m. Feb. 3 at a home on Southern States Nursery Road found a man lying dead on the ground near the rear of the home, according to an incident report.
The heavily-redacted report does not specify how many times the man, 31-year-old Dominic Jerome Broadus II, was shot or what led up to the shooting.
The only other person listed in the report, a 29-year-old man who is related to a retired deputy, was brought to the Sheriff’s Office’s headquarters for questioning.
News4Jax is not identifying the second man because he has not been charged with a crime. A man who answered a phone number listed for that man did not wish to comment Wednesday.
Attempts to reach relatives of Broadus were not immediately successful.
The Sheriff’s Office reached out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement the same day to ask state police to take over the investigation, said FDLE spokeswoman Jessica Cary.
“We’ll investigate to determine if there’s any criminality whatsoever,” said Cary, noting that it will be up to the State Attorney’s Office to decide whether to file charges.
Cary did not go into detail, citing the active investigation.
Sheriff Scotty Rhoden said he was limited in what he could discuss because FDLE is leading the investigation.
“I felt it would be in the best interest for all parties for FDLE to investigate this incident,” he said.
News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith, a former Jacksonville Sheriff's officer, agreed with Rhoden's decision to bring in an outside agency to investigate the shooting.
"It's just a matter of transparency," said Smith. "Just in case the shooting is deemed justified, someone cannot come back and say, 'Well, is it because his father was a police officer?'"
"Most homicide detectives that I know are fair and honest and look at the facts as they are," he added. "But most of the public just doesn't believe that."