{"id":536299,"date":"2026-03-14T17:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/536299\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T17:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:18:07","slug":"suspected-killer-on-loose-forces-gate-delay-at-the-players-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/536299\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspected killer on loose forces gate delay at The Players Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 A man shot and killed two people in a drug store parking lot near the TPC Sawgrass and then escaped by going onto TPC Sawgrass, leading\u00a0The Players Championship\u00a0to delay opening gates as a precaution before the third round Saturday morning, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>St. Johns County Sheriff Rob Hardwick said the suspect, whom he identified as Christian Barrios, shot two people multiple times at about 10:30 p.m. Friday in the parking lot of Walgreens in what he called a domestic violence situation. The store is located about a mile from the course.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say he was captured at about 8 a.m. Saturday in Nassau County, the far northeastern county in Florida located an hour north of the TPC Sawgrass.<\/p>\n<p>The PGA cited \u201coperational considerations\u201d in deciding not to open the gates until 9 a.m. The first round began on schedule at 8:15 a.m. Hospitality areas were delayed opening until 11 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>Hardwick said canine units pursued Barrios onto the TPC Sawgrass after the shooting. He said Barrios, who turned 32 on Saturday, at one point picked up a PGA Tour radio and later dropped it. He then stole a black BMW, and Nassau County authorities pursued the car and forced a crash into the woods.<\/p>\n<p>The suspect fled on foot before being found and taken into custody. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.<\/p>\n<p>Hardwick said the suspect had a long criminal history and knew the victims, both of whom were shot multiple times and taken to a hospital, where they died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 A man shot and killed two people in a drug store parking lot&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-536299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}