A former Marine donning full body armor and wielding an automatic weapon opened fire on police officers in Florida, after which police discovered four dead people, including a mother and her infant child, the New York Times reports.
The gunman, a veteran of tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, was seen nine hours earlier in the Polk County neighborhood where he told one of the victims that “God sent me here to speak with one of your daughters.” Police were called, but did not arrest him.
Later, a sheriff’s lieutenant heard two volleys of gunfire while on another call and tracked the gunshots to the home. There, they found a vehicle on fire amid the three homes on the property.
Bryan J. Riley, a 33-year-old from Brandon, was arrested after exchanging gunfire with police. Law enforcement said more than 100 rounds were fired in the exchange, which happened in a residential community.
Police found three victims–a 40-year-old man, a 33-year-old woman and a 3-month-old boy whom the woman was cradling in her arms–in one house and the infant’s 62-year-old grandmother shot dead in another residence on the same property. Riley also killed the family’s dog.
No police were injured. Riley surrendered after being wounded by officers. Riley said he was a survivalist and that he was high on methamphetamine at the time of the murders.