Officer Jason Bailey opened fire on two bail bondsmen without warning, and without noticing their marked clothing, their badges, or attempting to make contact with them.  Antonio L. Cooks, 32, was killed and Verne Williams, 37, was shot multiple times.  Another bondsman, Rhys J. Worton, 27, was not injured.  Williams is now in critical but stable condition at an area hospital.

Director John Hartley said Wednesday morning that Officer Bailey had no time to find out who the armed men were who were masked and dressed all in black, when he made his tactical approach around the back of apartment 1107 at the Mayfair Village Apartments on Tuesday morning.  "At 2:12 the officers arrived, at 2:13 they announced shot were fired," said Hartley.

Police were first dispatched just before 2 a.m. Tuesday to assist the three bondsmen, who were looking for Frederick Walker, 31, on a warrant for driving without a license and other habitual traffic violations.  After no one came to the door of apartment 1107, the officers left, but the bondsmen kept trying to contact the people inside the apartment. Walker was not inside the apartment, and has not been arrested.

At that point, Hartley said the bondsmen were doing nothing, to his knowledge that was illegal.  He said they were working for the downtown Jacksonville office of Make It Happen Bail Bonds.

About 20 minutes later, the same bondsmen called dispatch again, requesting assistance. Also at that same time the woman inside the apartment was calling 911 afraid for her life, saying armed, masked men were trying to break into her home. "Listening back to the tapes, this woman believes that her home is being broken into and she relays that information to the dispatcher, who is relaying that to the officers arriving on the scene," said Hartley. The Director also said officers from both zones two and three were involved in the calls, adding to the confusion. Beach Boulevard splits the line between the two zones.

A second set of officers were dispatched, Hartley said by a different person, and just after getting to the complex were told that the call was being upgraded to an armed home invasion. Officer Jason Bailey went around the back of the apartment with his AR-15 rifle ready, and opened fire without making any sort of contact with Cooks. Then, as Williams came around the corner, he was also shot without warning.

Hartley said there is an investigation by the state attorney's office as to whether the officer broke the law, and separate investigations into whether he violated procedure. There is also an investigation into whether the bondsmen were following all applicable laws, but at the time Hartley said he didn't think they did anything illegal.

All three bondsmen lived in Jacksonville.