FORT MYERS, Fla. A 19-year-old Bonita Springs man is accused of opening fire on a Fort Myers police officer, the Fort Myers Police Department said.
Berny Manuel McClellan was arrested more than five hours after a exchange of fire with the officer around midnight Saturday night near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Michigan Link, police said.
McClellan was one of five suspects in a vehicle that sped away from a traffic stop near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Highland Avenue, police said. The vehicle soon collided with another vehicle at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Michigan Link.
Some of those suspects were hit by the officer’s gunfire, police said. Police didn’t say whether McClellan was one of those hit.
Two suspects were detained immediately after the gunfire, police said. McClellan and two others were taken into custody at a home on the 1700 block of Raleigh Street.
McClellan is facing charges of one count each of attempted second degree murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, discharging a firearm in public and aggravated felony fleeing and eluding.
It’s unclear whether the other suspects are facing charges.
The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave, police said.
A bullet flew through a window into a unit at the nearby Renaissance Preserve apartments where a child was sleeping, resident Tornisha Jackson said.
Another resident said police wouldn’t allow her into her home.
“They blocked everybody at the entrance and told everybody they had to turn around,” Ashley Johnson said. “And I’m like, ‘I got my two babies in the car,’ and they was like, ‘You still can’t get in.'”
A stretch of Michigan Link was temporarily blocked from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to Renaissance Preserve Way.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has assumed the primary role of investigating the shooting at the request of Fort Myers police.
