JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A man who was shot while confronting a suspected car burglar makes up a total of nine shootings that were reported over the weekend in Jacksonville.
Charles Wolfa said it happened Saturday night while he was attempting to stop a break-in at his Sunbeam Road apartment complex at the intersection of San Jose Boulevard.
Wolfa said he was out walking his dog. He said he was carrying a firearm and attempted to pull it to stop the burglar, but he wasn’t fast enough, and the other man was also armed.
“I was trying to get my gun out, but I had a coat on and I’m turning to run away from him and I fell down,” Wolfa said. “I’m laying on the ground and got the gun out and cocked it, but the safety was on. Finally, I got a round off and he took off running.”
Wolfa is now out of the hospital, but still healing. He expects to make a full recovery.
“I wasn’t quite sure what was going on to begin with, and then I was like, what are you doing?” Wolfa said. “So yeah, it was stupid. Probably was.”
News4JAX crime and safety expert Ken Jefferson said he does not recommend confronting a thief, because you never know if they’re armed.
“Instinctively, you want to go and stop them but that’s not the smartest thing to do because you don’t know the mind of that person, [what they are] armed with or anything. You could be walking into a death trap or seriously injured,” Jefferson said.
“What you want to do is get as much information as you can about that person, whatever description you can get, and give it to police,” he continued. “Contact police as soon as possible. Let them know there’s a crime in progress.”
Wolfa said several cars at the apartment complex were burglarized.
RELATED: 9 shootings mark violent weekend in Jacksonville
The nine shootings over the weekend stretched from Northwest Jacksonville to the Sunbeam area. A woman was killed on Baymeadows Road just east of I-95.
A 14-year-old girl was wounded, Jacksonville police said, after she was struck by gunfire in a shooting that was triggered by an altercation in Northwest Jacksonville.
According to News4JAX records, in January 2021, 40 people where shot in Jacksonville. That fell to 25 last month. In February 2021, 31 people were shot in Jacksonville. As of Monday afternoon, 15 people had been shot in February 2022.