Shooting at Cocoa apartments involving officer, security guard, leaves man wounded
Cocoa FL October 16 2022
A 51-year-old man who apparently fired shots at a Cocoa police officer and at an apartment security guard Thursday afternoon was wounded during the confrontation, investigators said.
The shooting happened at about 3:20 p.m. at the Village Green apartment complex in the 1700 block of Dixon Boulevard in Cocoa.
The suspect, Dexter Bray, was treated by paramedics from the Cocoa Fire Department then airlifted to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne for treatment. He was in stable condition Friday morning with non-life-threatening injuries.
The unnamed officer and a security officer were taken to the Cocoa Police Department headquarters for debriefing.
Police said officers were called to the apartment complex by the security guard after a tow truck arrived to remove a vehicle from the area for an unknown reason.
Officers arrived at the site within minutes. It was then, police said, that Bray stepped out of the apartment with a gun and aimed it at the officers. Shots were fired, leaving Bray wounded. Firefighters across the street in Station 1 were inside the bay when they heard the gunshots, prompting them to close the station’s bay doors.
Bray has an active felony warrant for an unrelated assault, police said. He is facing multiple charges involving aggravated assault with a firearm against a police officer and a security guard.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was called in to investigate the incident independently. Detectives arrived and began interviewing potential witnesses as crime scene technicians photographed the roped-off scene, police said.
An investigation is ongoing.
