JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Two men suspected in a shooting on the Southside were arrested Friday following a 13-mile high-speed chase through Jacksonville.
According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, the men are wanted in connection with a shooting that happened Friday afternoon in the Kernan Oaks apartment complex, formerly The District on Kernan, on Kernan Boulevard South.
A 20-year-old man who was shot either in or next to his car at the complex is expected to recover.
Following the shooting, which happened around 1 p.m., an officer spotted a white Honda driving away from the scene.
When the officer started following the car, the driver started to speed away.
The officer then chased the suspects south on Southside Boulevard and eventually wound up on Hogan Road where the suspects crashed into a tree and the two suspects were arrested.
JSO said multiple cars were hit by the suspect driving during the chase.
Investigators are asking anyone who was hit to call JSO.
“It sounded like someone let a whole rifle clip empty out. And a little while later, I heard it again," said Jeff Martin, a Kernan Oaks resident. “The day after I moved into my new apartment, they had one right across from my window. Three people.”
Martin is referring to a triple shooting News4Jax covered back in July. One of the three victims who was shot inside an apartment later died at the hospital. Back then, we spoke with Haley Bush who lived across the parking lot from the building where the shooting happened. She was moving out because of safety concerns.
"There definitely have been security problems in this neighborhood. I don’t particularly think of this a bad area, but it’s also not shocking,” Bush said.
The Southside is more affluent than some of the other areas of Jacksonville, but News4Jax Crime and Safety expert Ken Jefferson said don’t let that fool you.
“We hear about it concentrated in certain areas of town a lot of the times, and we discount areas of the town it’s not happening as though it can’t happen," Jefferson said.
And the proof is in the crime data. A JSO crime map adjusted to view violent crimes within a one-mile radius of the Kernan Oaks Apartment complex reveal two armed burglaries and an armed robbery within the past four weeks.
The JSO crime map also revealed a lot of thefts and burglaries in this area, especially when the map is expanded to a two-mile radius.