SANFORD, Fla. – An unsanctioned block party over the weekend in the Midway community ended in a deputy shooting and killing an armed man, but Seminole County sheriff’s deputies believe there was another armed person at the time, and they are looking for help to find that person.
Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said the shooting happened at a block party Saturday at a bar called the Cool Breeze, in the 2200 block of Sipes Avenue.
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Lemma said the block party was not permitted, but was promoted online and drew hundreds of people.
Deputies arrived at the party after getting a noise complaint and began trying to clear the roadway. Lemma said one of the deputies heard an argument on the west side of the road. Lemma said the deputy started yelling for everyone to calm down and pulled out a Taser.
“A second or less after that, he sees a muzzle flash from the first shooter that’s on the west side of Sipes, who fires one round, directly across the roadway from where he’s standing, and then actually hits one female that we know of who was standing on the north side of the cool breeze in front. She is struck in her leg,” Lemma said.
The deputy immediately switched from his Taser to his gun.
Lemma says that’s when Marcus Barnett, 27, from Orange City, pulled out a .45-caliber handgun and fired two shots. The deputy then turned and fired his gun six times, hitting Barnett and killing him.
That deputy is on leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates.
Lemma says the agency reached out to Barnett’s mother to allow her to see body-worn camera videos of the shooting. He said she declined, but a representative from the family did come and sit down with investigators.
Another woman was shot in the course of the event, and it’s not known yet whose gun fired that shot. Both women suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Lemma says investigators are still looking for the first armed person, and they don’t know who they are yet. They’re asking people with any information to call Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS (8477).
Lemma said his agency was also going to be looking into the Cool Breeze, the bar’s connection to the block party, and whether they had the proper licensing to serve alcohol.
Lemma said his agency was going to be more aggressive going forward about finding these unsanctioned events. Lemma said his agency only knew about this event at the last minute.
“There was no Intel and a lot of times they won’t pre-promote these things,” Lemma said. “They’ll do it word of mouth because they know that if they do it the day of, it’s hard to intercept the communication we intercepted on the day of. So our deputies were out patrolling that area, watching and monitoring for it. But most of these parties are like pop-up parties, they call them. They just come up.”