A 12-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl broke into a home, found weapons and opened fire on deputies, sheriff says

By Melissa Alonso, CNN

Deputies in Volusia County, Florida, shot a 14-year-old girl on Tuesday night after she and a 12-year-old boy broke into a home, found multiple guns inside and then opened fire on deputies, according to Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.

The girl was shot in the abdomen and the arm and is fighting for her life in the hospital, while the boy surrendered and was not injured, Chitwood said.

“I don’t know what to say. Where have we gone wrong that a 12-year-old and 14-year-old think it’s okay to take on law enforcement?” he said.

According to Chitwood, the children ran away from Florida United Methodist Children’s Home (FUMCH) around 5 p.m. Tuesday and evaded police for hours. Around 8 p.m., a passerby told deputies he heard glass breaking at a home nearby, and deputies found there had been a forced entry into the home, Chitwood said.

Deputes contacted the homeowner, who had left 15 minutes prior, and the homeowner said, “Nobody should be home, but I have three firearms in the house — an AK-47, a pump shotgun and a handgun — and 200 rounds of ammunition,” according to Chitwood.

As deputies surrounded the home and tried to establish a rapport with the boy and girl, they were met with gunfire, the sheriff said. At one point, the 14-year-old girl emerged from the home and threatened to kill Sgt. Donnie Maxwell, Chitwood said.

“We try to deescalate, we throw a cell phone into the house to try to talk to them. The 14-year-old comes out of the garage with a pump shotgun, levels it at deputies, and despite warnings to drop it, she walks back into the garage. She comes back a second time, and that’s when deputies open fire,” said Chitwood.

He said officers took multiple rounds of gunfire before “they were left with no other choice but to return fire.” The officers had nowhere to hide but behind trees, he said.

At least eight deputies were involved in the incident, the sheriff’s office said, and body-camera footage is expected to released on Wednesday.

In his press conference, Chitwood praised his officers for their restraint in the face of waves of gunfire. He also denounced the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in particularly harsh terms, calling the department a “failure” and a “fraud.”

“The 14-year-old was arrested for stealing dogs, for larceny, she then got teen court, and was sentenced to a halfway house in Flagler County,” he said. “She burned that halfway house down on April 10 of 2021 and the Department of Juvenile Justice placed her in Florida United Methodist Children’s Home.”

The FUMCH did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Juvenile Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the officers’ use of force at the request of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, according to FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. The FDLE will examine the facts of what happened, develop a time line and then provide information to the state attorney, who will make a determination about whether the use of force was justified, she said.

CNN’s Eric Levenson, Leyla Santiago and Sara Weisfeldt contributed to this report.