By Teresa Stepzinski
Source The Florida Times-Union
A hostage situation at a Green Cove Springs gas station ended after several hours Saturday night when a Clay County sheriff's deputy shot a suspect holding a woman captive.
The shooting happened when a SWAT team member confronted the man face-to-face after hostage negotiators had been trying to convince him to surrender peacefully, according to the Clay County Sheriff's Office.
Lancy Luther Keenon Jr., 44, of Palatka was armed with a weapon when shot and wounded by a SWAT team member at the Speedway gas station at U.S. 17 and Florida 16, Green Cove Springs police said Sunday afternoon.
Police have charged Keenon — who remains hospitalized — with armed kidnapping, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony.
Clay County Circuit Judge Angela Cox set bail totaling $1 million for Keenon, records show.
No other injuries were reported by the Clay Sheriff's Office or Green Cove Springs police. Authorities emphasized the situation was unrelated to the annual Green Cove Springs Christmas Parade that was going on around the same time.
Traffic on U.S. 17 and Florida 16 as well as the nearby Shands Bridge was re-routed during the incident that continued for roughly four hours before the shooting.
Green Cove Springs police gave the following chronology of what began as a domestic incident.
About 7 p.m. police received a 911 call from the Speedway gas station. The caller said a hostage situation was going on inside the store with possible gunshots being fired. The man and woman had been arguing outside before going into a bathroom.
Officers were told the man was holding the woman against her will at gunpoint. They evacuated a clerk who was hiding and cleared the store.
Clay County sheriff's deputies arrived to assist including hostage negotiators and then the SWAT team.
"At some point in these negotiations, the suspect was shot by a member of the Clay County SWAT team as he was holding a weapon. The suspect was transported to the hospital and the victim was recovered unharmed," the Police Department said.
Keenon's public Facebook page contains a Saturday morning post about the apparent end of a relationship.
"Laying here thinking of the best part of my life. I will always love this woman and wish her the greatest success," he wrote. "I love everything about her. That's why I lived everyday for her for 13 years and 7 months. I dreaded thinking of the day that I would no longer be part of her life. Now I'm living this nightmare being without her."
Keenon has a lengthy arrest record in neighboring Putnam County. He was out on bail for an August arrest on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of domestic battery and single counts of false imprisonment and resisting an officer with violence, court records show.
Keenon was released on bail totaling at least $25,000 in the case and ordered to have no contact with the victim, the records show. It's unclear if the woman Saturday was the same victim in his prior arrest.
This is only the second suspect shot by Clay County deputies this year, according to Times-Union records.
On Feb. 27 deputies responded to several calls of gunfire shortly before 11 p.m. at the Alexander Point Apartments on Burwick Avenue in Orange Park. About five minutes after arriving, the suspect began shooting at the deputies who returned fire and killed him, according to the Sheriff's Office. He was identified as 32-year-old Rudy Marvin Duvivier.
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