Incident: Sunday, September 20, 2026, and early Monday, September 21, 2026, in Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach, Florida. Reported by the Ormond Beach Police Department and the Daytona Beach Police Department at a joint news conference on Monday, September 21. Updated Tuesday, September 22, 2026, after the suspect’s first appearance in court and the wounded officer’s release from the hospital.
An Ormond Beach police officer was shot in the leg at a Daytona Beach hospital early Monday while guarding a man who had been arrested hours earlier in an attack on an elderly couple, the two departments said.
The sequence began about 4:30 p.m. Sunday at Daytona College, 425 S. Nova Road, in Ormond Beach. Police said a 79-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman went to the business after an alert from a burglary alarm and found signs of trespassing, including a vehicle and items that did not belong there. Inside the building, police said, the couple found a wallet, an identification card and suspected alcohol. Police said the man inside the building was a contracted cleaning person at the college. Godfrey said the woman texted her son and spent about two hours messaging him about the person inside the vocational and technical school before her son advised the couple to call 911. Ormond Beach police were called to the address about 6:43 p.m., Godfrey said, and the couple made the call while standing outside the building.
Free — the opening chapterUnits Are SurroundedFive shootings in five months between members of the Soboba Indian Reservation and law enforcement in the Hemet area of Riverside County. My story about being in the middle of it. The full book is coming.Read how it starts
Police said a man later identified as Michael Hightower, 40, of Daytona Beach, walked out of the building and got into a vehicle, struck the woman with the vehicle, then got out and hit and kicked both the man and the woman before driving away. Officials said a 911 recording captured the sounds of a crash and a physical struggle in the background.
Officers found the couple on the ground outside the business and both were taken to a hospital. According to the arrest affidavit as reported by FOX 35 Orlando, the two were unresponsive and in “large pools of blood” when officers arrived, were in extremely critical condition and were placed on life support. Police have not released their names, and at the news conference the departments did not release the extent of their injuries. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that both remained hospitalized Monday in critical condition. WKMG-TV reported that both remained in critical condition on Tuesday. Neither has died.
Police said Hightower fled after his vehicle became disabled. Godfrey said officers from several agencies searched for him and found him walking in the 300 block of Clyde Morris Boulevard about 7:37 p.m. Neighborhood video helped investigators track his movements, police said. He was taken to the police department for an interview and then to AdventHealth Daytona Beach for medical clearance. Police said he had been injured in a crash and had been subdued with a Taser during the arrest.
About 3:20 a.m. Monday, during an MRI, Hightower struggled with officers and reached for the holstered handgun of the Ormond Beach officer assigned to guard him, Ormond Beach Police Chief Robert “Jesse” Godfrey said. Godfrey said Hightower pulled the weapon far enough out of the holster to fire one round, striking the officer in the leg.
Other officers subdued Hightower before he gained full control of the weapon, Godfrey said. Officials described a single round fired, from the officer’s own duty weapon. No hospital staff and no other officers were hurt.
A motion filed by an assistant state attorney gives a further account of the sequence. According to the motion, Hightower was handcuffed to a bed while he was being treated and was then taken to a room for a CT scan. The motion says medical personnel asked law enforcement to move his handcuffs from behind his back to the front before the scan, and that Hightower reached for the officer’s gun as police removed the handcuffs to reposition them. Godfrey described the imaging as an MRI at Monday’s news conference.
The officer’s injuries were described as non-life-threatening and the officer is expected to make a full recovery, Godfrey said. He said the officer was in good spirits and that family members had been at the hospital. The officer was discharged from Halifax Health Medical Center on Tuesday, September 22, the Ormond Beach Police Department said. Pauline Dulang, the department’s public information officer, said the officer and the officer’s family are now safely recovering at home.
Hightower was held without bail at the Volusia County Branch Jail on Monday on two counts of attempted felony murder and one count of resisting an officer with violence in the attack on the couple. The Daytona Beach Police Department separately charged him with aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, two counts of battery on specified personnel and assault on a law enforcement officer in connection with the shooting at the hospital.
Hightower was ordered held without bond at his first appearance on Tuesday, September 22. He was already free on bond in a separate case, on a charge of leaving the scene of a crash with injury from April 1, and an assistant state attorney filed a motion to revoke that bond, citing the new charges. The earlier bond was revoked, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
The Ormond Beach Police Department is investigating the attack at Daytona College. The Daytona Beach Police Department is the lead agency investigating the shooting of the officer. Young said he will call for a full review of how hospital medical staff treated the Daytona Beach officers who responded to the shooting, saying his officers were upset by the conduct of the on-duty emergency room doctor and that he had not yet completed his own review. The Daytona Beach Police Department released body-camera video of Hightower’s arrest on Tuesday, September 22.
A spokesperson for AdventHealth said the hospital would support and cooperate with the Daytona Beach Police Department’s investigation. Lindsay Cashio, executive director of communications for AdventHealth’s east Florida division, said the safety of patients, visitors and team members is the hospital’s highest priority and that all inquiries should be directed to local authorities.
Units Are Surrounded
The new book from Ray Dietrich. Five shootings in five months in Riverside County. The full book is coming - read how it starts, free.
