FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. — The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office says it has launched an investigation after a deputy fired a department-issued rifle and accidentally grazed an 11-year-old.
This happened on a private property near Mahogany Boulevard and Hazelnut Street.
Only Channel 9’s Ashlyn Webb spoke to the 11-year-old boy.
Jayce Buckner says he heard gunshots outside his Bunnell home while playing video games on his bed. Then, what felt like milliseconds later, something hit his arm and neck. He says he felt a pain he never felt before.
“It hurt and it burned,” Jayce recalled.
“You didn’t know at first what it was,” Channel 9 asked.
“No, I didn’t, Jayce replied.
Jayce’s parents say doctors told them the wound on his arm is a second-degree burn.
His mom Mary Buckner searched his room and later found a bullet hole right in front of Jayce’s bed.
“I seen jeans on the floor, so I went to pick them up. The jeans were shredded,” she said, adding the jeans were folded up on top of his drawer. “It went through multiple layers.”
Mary said investigators collected the shredded jeans.
According to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, two deputies, who are father and daughter, were shooting a department-issued rifle on their private property.
The report says one of the deputies who was shooting on private property spoke to law enforcement at the Buckners’ home. The report says the deputy was “extremely apologetic.”
The deputy said he was shooting at a small berm on his property with his daughter who just got a new rifle. He said the bullet must have “‘ricocheted’ off the target and landed in the home,” the deputy said. The report says the deputy’s property and the Buckner’s property are at least four houses apart.
The Sheriff’s Office says this is an active criminal investigation. Once that is complete, they’ll conduct an internal investigation. The agency is investigating which deputy fired the rifle that hit the Buckner’s home.
The agency says deputies are not supposed to shoot department-issued weapons unless it’s on the job or an authorized training. The Sheriff’s Office has not said whether this was authorized training.
“There has to be an authorized training, and it has to be approved by a supervisor. Again, all of that will become part of the investigation and whether our policies were followed,” said the Sheriff’s Office Chief of Staff Mark Strobridge.
Jayce’s father says, regardless, he doesn’t think deputies should be shooting so close to homes.
“It shouldn’t have ever happened,” Johnney Buckner said. “It should go to a range. I think any rifle out here, many people who lives out here at this day and time, you should not be shooting out here especially high-power rifles, it should go to gun range.”
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