Following a four-hour standoff with police officers, a Gainesville man was arrested for allegedly shooting at a man he knew Sunday afternoon.
Anthony Brown, 35, got into a heated argument with the man over $73 before Brown took out a gun and shot at him multiple times in his Windsor Terrace apartment on Southwest 20th Avenue near Winn-Dixie, said Officer Ben Tobias, a Gainesville Police spokesperson. The man was uninjured.
Sandra Norris, 56, lives in the apartment next to Brown’s. Her grandchildren, Kentiya, Kobe, Ke-Ajah and Kenylla shook her awake from a nap at about 1 p.m. when they heard the gunfire.
“Grandma, Tony is out there shooting,” Norris said they told her.
Norris said Brown tacked a piece of cardboard with the Ten Commandments written on it to his door after the argument. He then walked around carrying a Bible in one hand and his phone in the other, she said.
“God made me superior,” he said, according to Norris.
Police responded to the shooting at about 1:30 p.m. To stop Brown, they used a weapon that fires sponge-like rounds meant to incapacitate its target but not pierce their body, Tobias said. It proved ineffective.
Brown then went back into the apartment, where he had phone conversations with police negotiators while officers blocked the road between Southwest 34th Street and Southwest 38th Terrace with patrol cars for about four hours.
Windsor Terrace resident Sandra Norris appeared distressed as armored police vehicles surrounded Southwest 20th Avenue Sunday afternoon. "Never in a million years would I anticipate this happening" said the neighbor of the alleged shooter.
Residents of the apartment complex were evacuated by police behind riot shields and ushered onto the sidewalk in front of the Winn-Dixie across the street, where they watched the crime scene in their own complex. Children played while their parents filmed and pointed to Alachua County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team vehicles, including an armed Hummer and a machine to take down a door, which were parked at the Campus USA bank parking lot that bordered the neighborhood.
Ultimately, the vehicles weren’t needed to remove Brown from his home.
Brown’s girlfriend was inside the apartment during the incident, but she was not a hostage and has been detained by police, Tobias said. She might face criminal charges, he said.
Tobias said negotiators convinced the suspect to come outside of his apartment, after which he was arrested. Tobias said Brown could possibly be charged with attempted homicide and aggravated battery. Brown has not been charged, as of press time.
Kentiya Carver and her siblings normally play where the shooting took place. The 12-year-old Kanapaha Middle School student was watching television when she heard fighting followed by gunfire from her apartment’s open window.
“I thought it was firecrackers at first,” she said.
Norris said she texted Brown and told him to give himself up to police. She described Brown as “godly” and their neighborhood as quiet and friendly.
“Never in a million years would I have expected this from him,” Norris said.
Contact Robert Lewis at rlewis@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter at @Lewis__Robert.
Police vehicles surround the Windsor Terrace apartments on Southwest 20th Avenue following a shooting at the apartment complex Sunday afternoon.
