Deputy serving restraining order is shot and killed outside law office
A sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed outside a Florida law office on Tuesday after he arrived to serve a domestic violence restraining order. The gunman was later shot and killed while exchanging gunfire with deputies at a motel.
Okaloosa County Deputy Bill Myers died at the Fort Walton Beach Medical Center after he was shot multiple times, report the Associated Press, Northwest Florida Daily News and the Pensacola News Journal. The suspected gunman, postal worker Joel Dixon Smith, fled to a Comfort Suites in Niceville where he barricaded himself until deputies fired tear gas into his room. Smith was shot and killed by deputies when he emerged while firing his gun.
Myers was called to the law offices of Cotton & Gates in Shalimar, Florida, by lawyer Mike Gates, who said his client was ready to surrender his weapons as required by the injunction, according to the coverage by the Daily News. Smith told Myers his guns were outside in his truck, but when the two men went outside Smith pulled out a gun and began firing.
Myers had retired from the sheriff’s office in 2013, but he returned in January to work part-time in civil processing.
