Sheriff Judd: Suspect in police shootout has ties to sheriff's office

My Fox Tampa Bay ^ | 3/4/15

[Impala64ssa]

Two Lake Wales police officers are recovering Wednesday after being shot at by a local man Tuesday night. They are expected to be alright, but authorities say the situation could have been much worse.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office says it happened just before 6 p.m. when Officers John Schwarze and Benjamin Metz responded to a call at a home on the 700 block of Hillside Avenue.

The homeowner, 58-year-old John Goepferich, reported shots fired and said he needed police, but detectives now believe he was just trying to lure the officers to his home.

When they arrived, Lake Wales Police Chief Chris Velasquez says Goepferich immediately opened fire on them.

They are now calling it an ambush.

Investigators have also unveiled that Goepferich has close ties to the Polk County Sheriff's Office. Both his son and daughter work there. She is a deputy, and he works in IT.

"That's frightening under any circumstances, but when it's the father of a law enforcement officer and an IT professional in our organization, it is even more disturbing to us, and you can be sure of one thing, he will be held fully accountable for his actions tonight," Judd said Tuesday.

The officers weren't the only ones injured in the shootout.

Goepferich was also shot, and was taken to the hospital for treatment. He has since been released and booked at the county jail.

[Impala64ssa]

Some form of "workplace violence"?

[DocRock]

It’s rare for a perp to survive shooting at LEO in this county.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

ping

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[sarasmom]

True.

But it looks like it was mostly city, not county LEOs involved.
I could be wrong, and not a lot of information is available locally right now, other than no LEOs are dead, and neither is the perp.

[DocRock]

I passed 2 Sheriff cars headed to the scene and my employee was heading home and was passed by 3. He lives in Lake Wales. I was on a ham radio net about an hour later and they were keeping me up to date with on scene info and they had they said that Polk Co Swat was also on scene. It shows restraint on the part of LEO that he was taken alive... shot, but alive.

[DocRock]

The perp

[sarasmom]

Thanks for the updates!

[DocRock]

Crazy stuff... did you see the lady that ran the red light and smashed into the side of a semi in Lake Wales a couple of days ago? The semi didn't stop and the lady was in critical condition. As I was checking on a friend that is a Lake Wales police officer to make sure he wasn't one of the officers shot, I found out it was his mother that hit the truck. Then, last night I was talking on the radio with my local ham buddies and one of them checked his surveillance video at his business on SR60 and he found the semi and could read the name of the truck company. He knew some of the people that worked in the company and called them, they checked their trailers and found one with a small amount of damage. The driver of the semi never felt it and had no idea he had been hit, and if you saw the video, he never hit his brakes. The only damage on the truck was some bent wind fairing and a small 2 inch gash on one of the tire rims. Her car was totaled. Small, connected world.

crash video