{"id":53269,"date":"2025-01-09T19:02:54","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T00:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=53269"},"modified":"2025-01-09T19:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T00:03:10","slug":"fleeing-sex-offender-steals-polk-county-deputys-gun-manhunt-started-found-him-in-lake-bonnet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/01\/09\/fleeing-sex-offender-steals-polk-county-deputys-gun-manhunt-started-found-him-in-lake-bonnet\/","title":{"rendered":"Fleeing sex offender steals Polk County deputy\u2019s gun \u2013 manhunt started found him in Lake Bonnet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A large manhunt took place in Polk County Thursday after a fleeing suspect reportedly grabbed a deputy\u2019s gun, pointed it at him, and told him to \u201cback off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident unfolded around 2:45 p.m. in the area of Brunell Parkway and Lorri Ave in Lakeland, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The sheriff\u2019s office said the suspect, Curtis Young, 53, had recently been released from jail and had violated the conditions of his sex offender registration by absconding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were dealing with a sex offender,\u201d Judd said. \u201cHe had already gotten in trouble for having sex with a child between 12 and 16 years of age, and ultimately, we were checking on the status of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deputies tracked Young to Lakeland using his GPS ankle monitor. However, Young reportedly started running as soon as he spotted law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A deputy pursued Young as he ran into a nearby backyard. That\u2019s when the sheriff said Young spun around and tackled the deputy to the ground \u201cas if they were on a football field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young reportedly ripped the deputy\u2019s gun out of its safety holder as they were fighting on the ground. He then jumped to his feet and held the deputy at gunpoint, Judd said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe good news is he chose not to shoot us,\u201d the sheriff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After he had the gun, deputies said Young took off running again. A massive search ensued, including helicopters, boats, and K-9 units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the altercation, Young fled on foot and leaped into Lake Bonnet, attempting to evade capture by swimming and hiding among aquatic vegetation approximately 50-75 yards offshore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judd said K-9 teams tracked Young to nearby Lake Bonnet, where they eventually found him hiding in a patch of vegetation after over an hour of searching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he was taken into custody, Young told authorities he had dropped the deputy\u2019s firearm in the lake. As of Thursday afternoon, deputies were still searching the water for the weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judd said Young will be going back to jail with \u201ca litany of charges.\u201d The good news, he said, is no one was hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to hurt us,\u201d the sheriff said. \u201cHe wanted to escape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young\u2019s criminal history includes previous arrests for lewd and lascivious battery on a victim between 12 and 15 years old, battery, aggravated assault, kidnapping, fraud, forgery, grand theft, grand theft of a motor vehicle, DUI, and failure to register as a sex offender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A nearby school was placed briefly placed on lockdown during the incident, but Judd said there was no threat to the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judd said the sheriff\u2019s office plans to launch a follow-up investigation to ensure the deputy\u2019s gun holsters are secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A large manhunt took place in Polk County Thursday after a fleeing suspect reportedly grabbed a deputy\u2019s gun, pointed it at him, and told him to \u201cback off.\u201d The incident… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDFcL1BDU08xLndlYnA_Zml0PTYwMCUyQzQ1NSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkZsZWVpbmcgc2V4IG9mZmVuZGVyIHN0ZWFscyBQb2xrIENvdW50eSBkZXB1dHlcdTIwMTlzIGd1biBcdTIwMTMgbWFuaHVudCBzdGFydGVkIGZvdW5kIGhpbSBpbiBMYWtlIEJvbm5ldCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.qq3gwqM5HCwnDw-RCjs_XOrQiJAD5punYP3AHjbroCAMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":53270,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/PCSO1.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[10737],"class_list":["post-53269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-fleeing-sex-offender-steals-polk-county-deputys-gun-manhunt-started-found-him-in-lake-bonnet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53271,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53269\/revisions\/53271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}