JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A road rage incident early Tuesday morning led to a high-speed police chase across Jacksonville that ended with an officer shooting the driver, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said.
The driver, 45-year-old Charles Guernsey, was taken to a hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening.
Video from the scene showed a JSO cruiser with bullet holes in its windshield being towed. News4JAX’s Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney said the officer probably shot at Guernsey through the windshield, something officers are trained to do if they’re in a situation where there’s an immediate threat.
According to JSO, just before 1 a.m., another driver flagged down officers in the area of I-95 and MLK Parkway and reported that he’d been involved in a road rage incident with the driver of a pick-up truck. He said the other driver, later identified as Guernsey, had pulled out a gun and threatened him with it.
The driver who’d been threatened called 911 right away to report the incident, including the license plate of the truck, and then spotted the officers, flagged them down and told them what happened, JSO Chief Alan Parker said.
Those officers immediately took off in pursuit of the pick-up, but when they got behind it, Guernsey took off and the chase began, Parker said.
The report shows speeds in the chase reached over 100 mph several times.
Parker said the chase lasted somewhere between 25 and 30 miles and crisscrossed the city from the Eastside to the Westside. It started near I-95 and Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway then went east over the Matthews Bridge, onto I-295 up to the airport, before coming to an end on West Beaver Street near I-295.
The Florida Highway Patrol got involved in the pursuit on the interstate and attempted two PIT maneuvers to stop the truck, but neither worked because it was a larger vehicle, Parker said.
When the chase reached I-295 and Commonwealth Avenue, JSO deployed stop sticks to flatten the truck’s tires.
Parker said Guernsey made it to West Beaver Street driving on the rims of his flattened tires before a JSO officer was able to successfully PIT the truck and stop it.
That’s when Guernsey jumped out of the vehicle and tried to run away, but Officer Stephen Hicks fired multiple rounds at him, striking him at least once, Parker said.
Parker said no weapon was found on Guernsey, but investigators were waiting on a warrant to search his truck.
According to an analysis by Everytown for Gun Safety, road rage shooting deaths and injuries in the U.S. doubled from 2018 to 2022.
And Northeast Florida is no stranger to this kind of violence.
Last March, a man was arrested and charged with attempted murder for a road rage shooting in Northwest Jacksonville, and in October, a shooting on I-95 in St. Johns County left two people hurt.
Parker said Officer Hicks has been with JSO for three years and this was his second officer-involved shooting and it was the second officer-involved shooting of the year for the department.
Guernsey, who has an extensive criminal history in Baker and Alachua counties, has been charged with eluding police.
News4JAX found Department of Corrections records for Guernsey that include prison sentences for drug possession and aggravated battery on a pregnant victim.