A Florida sheriff says he wishes his deputies would have killed the former Marine who is accused of killing four people on Sunday.
“It would’ve been nice if he’d have come out with a gun and then we’d have been able to read a newspaper through him,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said on Sunday during a press conference. “If he’d have given us the opportunity, we’d have shot him up a lot.”
Bryan Riley is accused of killing four people and is charged with first degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer, shooting into a building, second degree arson and armed burglary with assault/battery.
Riley admitted to killing the four people, including a 10-month old baby, as they begged for their lives, saying there were “voices” in his head telling him to shoot.
Riley ended up in a shootout with police, but ultimately came out of the house he barricaded himself in with his hands up.
“You see,” Judd said, “it’s easy to shoot innocent children and babies and people in the middle of the night when you got the gun and they don’t.”
Judd told The Washington Post his deputies “certainly wished he’d come out and finished his fight.”
Judd is known for his blunt responses to the media when crime happens, with a local TV station having a program that runs at the end of each year called “Best of Grady Judd” to highlight his notorious responses, according to The Post.
An 11-year-old girl who survived the shooting remains in the hospital, according to police.