Florida Mayor Arrested for Allegedly Shooting at Police
(The AEGIS Alliance) – A Mayor in Florida, who faced accusations of practicing medicine without a license, got arrested on Thursday after allegations of firing shots at police officers who were trying to serve a search warrant, according to authorities.
Mayor Dale Massad of Port Richey has been arrested and faces charges of two counts of attempted homicide after he allegedly fired shots at a couple sheriff’s deputies at his house in central Florida, said Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.
68 year old Massad is also facing charges of practicing medicine without a license. There have been no injuries reported from the incident and deputies did not return gunfire, says the sheriff’s office.
Massad has a history of violence and is a known drug user, Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said. Massas had been elected the mayor of Port Richey in 2015. The city is located around 40 miles north of Tampa.
“We knew this was going to be a very dangerous situation, which it did turn out to be,” Chris Nocco said in a press release on Thursday. “Our deputies did an unbelievable job. Those deputies were professional, their training kicked in and they did a great job.”
“He’s lucky he’s not dead,” Nocco added.
Massad was arrested recently for a domestic violence incident, he had multiple weapons at his home, and said to deputies that he refused to go back into jail, says Nocco.
“This was a violent individual who had made the statement [saying] he wasn’t going back to jail,” said Nocco. “We did everything we could to make it a peaceful resolution. He’s the one who made the decision to shoot at us.”
From 1977 until 1992, Massad was a licensed doctor. According to the Florida Department of Health, he surrendered his license voluntarily following the Board of Medicine alleging he made errors in care that led to a 3 year old patient’s death back in 1990,.
An investigation was launched by agents after they received reports that Massad was seeing patients out of his home for medical treatment, said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in a statement.
“FDLE agents received information from the Port Richey Police Department that Massad, whose medical license was relinquished in 1992 in place of revocation, was still practicing medicine,” the Florida Department of Law Enforcement mentioned. “He had performed medical procedures at his residence with one procedure requiring additional hospital treatment for the patient.”
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
