A man drove a four-door sedan through a fenced gate at a Hillsborough County facility and opened fire on a group of women eating lunch, according to Chief Deputy Frank Losat. One woman was fatally shot. An armed security guard confronted the gunman and exchanged gunfire, and the suspect was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. The initial shots-fired call came in at 12:11 p.m., and the suspect was carrying a rifle.
The scale of the response was enormous. The sheriff’s office said 367 deputies responded to the scene, and investigators planned to interview 3,200 employees through the night. The building was being cleared as the investigation continued into what happened and why.
For everyone on the Suncoast, this story hits close to home, because the setting is the kind of place most of us drive past every day: a county building, a parking lot, a lunch table outside. Security at public buildings, the role of armed guards, and workplace emergency preparedness are no longer abstract topics around here. If a car can roll through a gate in broad daylight, the question of what protects the people inside becomes very real.
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