Deputy Chicara Hearns of the Gadsen County (FL) Sheriff's Office was wounded in a shooting Tuesday. (Photo: Gadsden County SO)
A Gadsen County, FL, sheriff's deputy was shot and wounded Tuesday on a dead end road in the town of Havana.
Deputy Chicara Hearns came upon a stolen truck she and other officers were trying to find. The man behind the wheel was Dexter Lawson, a 38-year-old felon from Quincy, Tallahassee.com reports.
“She noticed him,” said Lt. Anglie Holmes, a spokeswoman for the Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office. “He was heading in her direction and just rammed her head-on and pinned her in a ditch. (He) got out and opened fire on her.”
Lawson fired three rounds, with two stopped by Hearns' body armor and another striking her, Sheriff Morris Young said in a news conference Wednesday. It missed all of her major organs but remains inside her, Young said. Doctors hope to remove it later.
Lawson, his stolen truck disabled from the crash with Hearns’ patrol car, fled into nearby woods. More than two dozen Florida Highway Patrol troopers scoured the area, calling in police dogs and drones to find Lawson.
He was apprehended within hours and taken to the Leon County Detention Facility, where he remains without bond. He's facing charges of attempted murder, grand theft of a motor vehicle and tampering with evidence.
