LAKELAND, Fla. — Two men were arrested Wednesday after police say one of them knowingly tried to kill two Lakeland police officers.
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Lakeland Police Chief Sammy Taylor, Jr. announced the arrests in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
According to Taylor, the incident started at approximately 5 p.m. Tuesday evening as the two Lakeland police officers were conducting surveillance from an unmarked police vehicle in the 1800 block of Plateau Drive.
Chief Taylor said the two officers were parked in the area when 18-year-old Arthur Williams walked up and asked them if they had “gas,” a street term for marijuana.
According to the police department, Williams was accompanied by 22-year-old Abdul Littles, who was driving a red Nissan Maxima.
Though Chief Taylor said neither Williams nor Littles were the subjects of the surveillance being conducted, the officers photographed both men and then left the area, as their operation had been compromised.
Taylor added that both wore shirts clearly worked with police department insignia and had other police equipment with them, suggesting Williams should have known they were police officers when he approached them.
According to Taylor, less than an hour later, the same officers were patrolling an area on Atlantic Road, 10 to 15 miles north of the Plateau Drive location, when they saw the same red Maxima stopped in the roadway with Wiliams and Littles standing next to it.
Chief Taylor said Williams pointed his fingers at the officers as they drove by, simulating firing a gun at them.
After passing the two suspects, Taylor says one of the officers looked in the rearview mirror to see Williams actually holding a handgun as he started shooting directly into the detectives’ vehicle, striking it at least five times.
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According to Lakeland police, video surveillance obtained from the area showed Williams firing approximately 15 shots at the officers.
“Miraculously,” Chief Taylor said, neither officer was struck by the gunfire.
According to police, both Williams and Littles then fled the area in the red Maxima.
A search for Williams and Littes immediately began with assistance from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and Federal Bureau of Investigations,
Chief Taylor says the search continued late Tuesday into the early morning hours Wednesday, when, at approximately 1:30 a.m., both suspects were found at a home in Tampa.
According to police, the suspects had called for an Uber to pick them up in an attempt to distance themselves from the shooting scene and the red Maxima.
After Williams and Littles left the home in the Uber, police conducted a traffic stop on it and took them both into custody.
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Chief Taylor says the Uber driver cooperated with their investigation, revealing that the suspects were headed back to the address on Plateau Street in Lakeland.
Williams was ultimately arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder on a law enforcement officer and two counts of shooting into an occupied vehicle. Littles was arrested on unrelated charges by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office but remains a subject of the Lakeland Police Department’s investigation, suspected of driving the red Maxima after the shooting.
The investigation into the shooting remains active and ongoing.
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