Florida Deputy Killed

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. -- After killing two women and leaving two others fighting for their lives Thursday afternoon, John Kalisz slipped through a police dragnet, authorities said, and roared north out of Hernando County on U.S. 19.

By the time he was captured hours later, another person was dead - a Dixie County sheriff's captain.

Carrying two loaded shotguns, Kalisz told his brother in Clearwater by phone that he would kill as many deputies as possible, Hernando sheriff's officials said.

Dixie County deputies in two unmarked vehicles followed him on U.S. 19 out of Old Town and tried to pull him over, said Capt. Evan Sullivan of the Levy County Sheriff's Office.

Kalisz pulled into a BP station at the intersection of U.S. 19 and County Road 351 in Cross City, Sullivan said, and came out shooting, hitting Dixie County sheriff's Capt. Chad Reed in the face.

Reed, 33, died Thursday night at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, according to Sullivan, who said he had been asked by Dixie County Sheriff Dewey H. Hatcher Sr. to handle media requests.

After Reed was shot, fellow deputies shot Kalisz. He also was taken to Shands. His condition was not available late Thursday night.

"The good news is that he's been apprehended. The bad news is that we have an officer who has been shot," said Hernando County sheriff's spokeswoman Sgt. Donna Black. "We were very afraid that was going to happen."

Reed, who formerly worked as the county's emergency management director, was married with two young children, said Kathy McKinney of the Dixie County Advocate newspaper. McKinney's brother-in-law is a major with the Dixie Sheriff's Office.

"It's so sad," she said.

Sullivan said Reed recently graduated from the FBI National Academy.

"Capt. Reed was a fine man, a great law enforcement officer and a hometown boy in Dixie County," Sullivan said.

Kalisz, 55, is alleged to have killed two women and seriously wounded two other women - a pregnant teenager and a home health care nurse - in a rural neighborhood north of Brooksville.

Hernando Sheriff Richard Nugent had few details on what led to the shootings other than that it was an apparent domestic dispute.



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