JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer officers attempted to quell a heated armed confrontation in the Riverside neighborhood, leading to an altercation where an officer was bitten by a service dog.
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A dispute in the Riverside neighborhood escalated to an armed confrontation Friday after a woman with a gun threatened to call the police.
A woman’s husband was the victim of a car burglary last weekend. JSO said the woman, identified as Jaimie Phillips, her 4-year-old daughter and their 10-year-old German Shepard, Milo, who was assigned to the retired veteran for PTSD by the Wounded Warriors, were searching to recover important items left behind from the burglary on the railroad tracks near College Street and Roosevelt Boulevard.
“Some of his property was already recovered over here on the tracks. So today she came out to walk the tracks to see if they found anything else. My understanding, there’s a bag missing. It was pretty significant to him. It’s got some emotional attachment,” JSO said in a news conference Friday evening.
During the search, Phillips stumbled across a bicycle unrelated to the personal items she was trying to recover.
Another woman saw Phillips messing with the bike, causing a dispute to become “a little heated,” JSO said.
News4JAX spoke with Phillips about the encounter.
“This lady came out of nowhere, and she said, ‘That’s my bike. Don’t take it. I said I don’t want your bike. I’m looking for some things that we got stolen from us.' And she just kept on, and she got in my face and she pushed me,” Phillips said.
JSO said the women started pushing each other and arguing over a “misunderstanding.” Phillips warned the other woman that she had a gun.
The other woman told her to call the police. Phillips called the police and informed them that she had a gun in a holster on her hips.
By the time JSO arrived at the scene around 2:30 p.m., the women could still be heard yelling.
According to police, JSO separated the two, detaining the other woman.
Officer Milan Jones attempted to get to Phillips but the dog lunged at Jones, biting him on his left leg.
“I had my hands up in the air with the leash and everything, and he got he just kept coming forward, and I was begging him to please, let me tie my dog up and he would not do that,” Phillips said.
Jones fired three shots at the dog and a fragment of a bullet ricocheted and struck Phillips in the shin area of her left leg.
“The bullets went through my dog and hit the ground and came up and went into my leg. That’s where they are now,” Phillips said.
The dog was doing okay, police said, but Phillips said Milo was in surgery. Phillips was taken to the hospital, and the child was unharmed.
Phillips said she expects to be fine but is concerned about Milo.
“He saved me out of a dark place that the Marine Corps put me in, and he’s everything,” Phillips said.