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Florida Shooting: 3 Dead In Inglis, 1 Critically Injured

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 03:48 PST, Oct 2, 2015

A Florida shooting Thursday evening, October 1, 2015, left three dead and one person critically injured in the town of Inglis. The shooting took place at a home near the local town hall. A north Florida man shot and killed two people, one his estranged wife, before taking his own life.
The Inglis, Florida shooting happened in a home around 6 p.m. The town is located approximately 50 miles from Gainesville in Levy County. 911 calls reporting shots fired were received by the Levy County Sheriff’s Office, and deputies and EMS personnel were immediately dispatched to the area, MSN reports. When the ambulance arrived at the scene, crew members found two men shot in the front yard of the home, the Daily Star reports.

Tummond said the EMS crew arrived first and found two men shot in the front yard of the home. Walter S. Terhune, 68, of Inglis, was pronounced dead at the scene. Otis G. Bean, the homeowner, was airlifted to an area hospital in critical condition.

Police officers then surrounded the home, thinking the shooter was likely still inside. A deputy had observed a the figure of a man in a second-story window before he moved quickly out of sight. A single gunshot was heard moments later.

When the Levy County deputies entered the home, they discovered Patricia Tyson dead on the first floor of the Inglis home. The man spotted upstairs who took his own life has been identified as Walter Tyson, 57, the victim’s estranged husband.

The Tysons, who had recently separated, lives in adjacent Citrus County. The relationship between Patricia Tyson and the homeowner remains unclear. Terhune is believed to have been a neighbor and a bystander who tried to help prevent the shooting.

Walter Terhune, a Vietnam veteran, was across the street from the home where the shooting took place. Terhune heard the gunfire, saw that children were playing nearby, and ran to help, the International Business Times reports.

“This is a very… tragic incident for this small community,” Levy County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Scott Tummond Tummond said. “Based on information from people on scene, it appears that the incident started due to a domestic situation, but we’re not able to confirm that yet.”

The Levy County Sheriff’s Office is just beginning its investigation into the Inglis shooting. Domestic violence is being considered as the primary motive at this time.

The Inglis, Florida shooting was quickly referred to as a mass shooting and comparisons drawn between the Florida shooting and the Umpqua Community College shooting yesterday.

As the gun control debate which always occurs after a mass shooting rages, Second Amendment rights advocates rapidly pointed out that on any given weekend, the gang-related gun deaths in Chicago reach double digits. Approximately 396 people have been killed so far this year in Chicago, and 2324 individuals have been shot in the city. A person is wounded by gunfire about 16 minutes in Chicago.

Chicago has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation. Gun control supporters have claimed that guns coming in from outside the city are to blame, yet the crime statistics from adjacent areas in Cook County and the state of Illinois overall boast significantly lower violent crime rates that President Obama’s adopted hometown.

Check back with the Inquisitr for more details about the Florida shooting as additional information concerning the breaking news story become available.

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