JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As the community rallied behind the JSO officer shot Tuesday night, News4JAX spoke to two retired Jacksonville police officers who were also shot in the line of duty.
A suspected shoplifter shot Jared Reston in 2008 and a murder suspect shot Pete Soulis in 1997. Both men returned fire, killing their attackers and recovered.
Both men said police work has always been risky, but now is an incredibly dangerous time.
Reston remembers well the encounter that almost cost him his life.
“Shot through the jaw, shot seven times, one to the thigh, three to my body armor, one of my buttock and one of my elbows,” Reston said.
As a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer, Reston was chasing a shoplifting suspect from the Regency Mall. In a fight with the suspected thief, his Taser malfunctioned, and the man pulled a gun. Reston, wounded, was able to fire back and kill the man. Reston had a long and painful recovery but returned to the force to become an accomplished detective and SWAT team member.
“It was never in my brain that I wasn’t going back to work,” Reston said.
Reston, who’s now training officers on tactics and safety, said it hurts every time an officer is shot in the line of duty and he was disturbed to learn Tuesday night’s shooting involved a relatively young officer critically wounded outside Baptist South. The officer shot Tuesday is the third JSO officer shot on the job in 2023 and the two others are recovering.
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“It brings anger, hurt at some things of why it had to happen, why it went like that,” Reston said. “We are that line that separates us and he did a good thing of standing in between that bad guy and someone else that could have gotten hurt. I mean, it’s one of those things, I’d rather us be hurt than him hurt somebody else. That’s what we’re here to do.”
News4JAX also spoke with Soulis another retired JSO officer shot in the line of duty in 1997 when he approached a fugitive wanted for murder.
“I walked up to the car and the guy ambushed me at that point, and then it put me on my heels. Fortunately, for me, I recovered because of my background, you know, I’d had a lot of a lot more firearms training than the average officer back then.” Soulis said.
He too took down the suspect despite being severely hurt, went back to work, and now trains officers and military members across the world.
“These young officers are, you know, they’re facing the worst of the worst, right, right out of the saddle. And that’s concerning. And that’s why it’s really very important that folks like myself and Jared Reston, and these guys that have lived that life, start really focusing on giving back to this younger generation,” Soulis said.
Soulis believes now more than ever officers are in danger and need to always be alert and prepared for attacks especially when in uniform. He said he’s praying for the injured officer and his family hoping for a full recovery.