Shootout with police precedes discovery of 4 dead, including baby, in Florida home

Wild shootout with police precedes discovery of 4 dead in Florida home

A man dressed in full body armor and wielding an automatic weapon allegedly went on an early-morning shooting "rampage" in Polk County, Florida, on Sunday, killing four people, including a mother and her baby, and wounding an 11-year-old girl before giving up and telling police he was high on drugs, authorities said. The shooting unfolded before dawn at two adjacent homes on the same property near Lakeland, Florida, about 35 miles east of Tampa. A sheriff's lieutenant two miles away heard the volley of automatic gunfire, responded to the scene and radioed for backup, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference. Grady said that 9 hours earlier, deputies received a 911 call from the same home and that a woman reported a strange man parked near her residence who allegedly told her he was there because "God sent me here to speak with one of your daughters." He said deputies responded to the 911 call within six minutes, but the man was nowhere to be found. The sheriff said the same man returned to the home around 4:30 a.m. Sunday and allegedly unleashed a barrage of fatal gunfire.