NASSAU COUNTY, Fla — A Nassau County man is facing charges after he was caught on surveillance video getting inside a parked vehicle and discharging a firearm with two children inside, according to the Nassau County Sheriff's Office.
During a news conference Monday, Sheriff Bill Leeper announced arrests in two incidents that happened over the weekend, including an attempted carjacking which ended in the arrest of 31-year-old Michael Deshaun Hooper.
At approximately 10 p.m. Friday, a woman and her two children arrived at a Harris Teeter Grocery Store on First Coast Highway in Fernandina Beach to purchase a bottle of water.
The woman went inside the store while her two children, a teenage boy and young girl, were left inside the locked vehicle, deputies say.
While the woman was checking out, her son called her saying the car alarm was going off. The woman unlocked the car in an attempt to turn the alarm off.
When the woman walked outside, she saw both the driver side and rear-passenger door open, and a man sitting in the driver's seat of her car. The man inside the vehicle was later identified as Hooper, a manager at the grocery store.
Deputies say the woman ran to the car, unbuckled her daughter from her seat and both kids ran inside the store with their mother.
The woman's son said he was sitting in the backseat with his sister, when the car alarm went off. He opened the door to turn off the alarm.
Then, the teen told deputies Hooper asked if the children were okay, before getting into the driver's seat.
The son tried to put Hooper in a headlock because he was "fearing for his life and his little sister," according to deputies.
During the struggle, Hooper pulled out a handgun and discharged it. The bullet broke through the car windshield and hit a light pole.
As the woman ran over to get her children out of the car, Hooper took off on foot, according to deputies.
A store manager confirmed the man seen getting inside the car in the video was Hooper, who he knew from work.
Hooper later turned himself in the following morning and told deputies he "blacked out" and thought the woman's son was trying to steal the car.
After interviewing Hooper and looking at surveillance video of the incident, deputies arrested Hooper on charges of armed carjacking and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Hooper was taken to the Nassau County Jail and Detention Center.