Action News Jax is hearing from the Lake City Police Chief after one of his officers was shot on the job Sunday night.
Officer Marcus Hardison was hit by gunfire during a Lake City Easter celebration held at the Annie Mattox Recreation Center off of Northeast Center Avenue.
When Action News Jax’s Madison Foglio spoke with Chief Gerald Butler earlier Monday, he told us Officer Hardison was in surgery at the time for injuries sustained to his right arm. He is expected to survive, but from what the chief tells us, the injuries to his arm were serious.
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Felicie Crusaw was at the Easter celebration when she heard the gunshots.
“The only thing that was going through my head was, please don’t hit us,” said Crusaw. “It was kids out here. It was just crazy.”
Around 8pm on Sunday, Officer Marcus Hardison was doing crowd control at the easter celebration at the Annie Mattox Recreation Center, when he and a Columbia County Sheriff’s deputy were called to break up a fight. As they were heading toward the fight, gunshots rang out, and Officer Hardison was shot in the arm.
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“Where the officer was struck, we understand it sounds like a single gunshot. Officers report hearing some gunfire off in the distance, but we weren’t able to confirm that,” said LCPD Chief Gerald Butler. “We do have a gunshot detection system in the area. It did register the gunfire that occurred where the Officer was struck. But we had no additional activations in that area. So we’re still trying to determine what was going on."
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Foglio asked Chief Butler if anything like this had happened at this event before. He said not to this level.
“Normally, you know, there’s a lot of people there, but officers are estimating the crowd size was approximately two to three thousand people, which is a lot bigger than normally occurs.”
As of Monday, Chief Butler said they are still trying to figure out who was involved in the fight, what the fight was about, and, of course, who shot the gun. The Chief did say three people were arrested for unrelated charges for interfering with the investigation as they were getting there. Those are not related to the officer being shot.
Related: Police: Lake City man facing resisting charge after interfering with media covering officer shot
As a result, the Chief said there could be some changes coming to the event next year.
“I’m getting together with Sheriff Kitchings. We’re going to be getting together with the Annie Mattox board because it is a private park and determine what we can do to make this event safer for everyone,” said Chief Butler.
We asked the Chief what the potential changes could look like.
“Might close it down earlier, something along those lines. Right now, they usually shut it down at sunset. We might make them shut it down at 6 PM. So as we’re clearing the park, it’s still daylight. But also, the later it goes, the more intoxicated people sometimes get,” said Chief Butler.
These are just some of the changes that could be made. The Chief said they have a bunch of different avenues they could take. There is no word yet on when that meeting will take place.
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