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article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
Courtesy: Martin County Sheriff’s Office <\/p>\n
VERO BEACH, Fla. – A former neurosurgeon and a U.S. Marshal were injured during a gunfight in Florida<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n The gunfight involved two Martin County Sheriff\u2019s Office detectives and two Indian River County Sheriff\u2019s Office detectives assigned to the United States Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force who were trying to capture Thomas Steffens, 72, a former neurosurgeon who was wanted out of Colorado on accusations that he drugged a woman with prescription medications and then sexually assaulted her.<\/p>\n According to the Martin County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the United States Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force was serving a warrant on Steffens.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n Investigators said they got a tip that Steffens was traveling to South Florida by bus and reportedly said that he would not be taken alive.<\/p>\n Task members found the vehicle Steffens was riding in and pulled it over.<\/p>\n READ: Iran War: Army Reserve soldier from Winter Haven killed during Kuwait drone strike<\/a><\/p>\n Law enforcement officers stated that Steffens was sitting in the passenger\u2019s seat and refused to exit despite multiple commands to do so.<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n According to MCSO, Steffens opened fire on the five task force members from inside the car.<\/p>\n Courtesy: Indian River County Sheriff’s Office <\/p>\n Detectives and U.S. Marshals said they returned fire and struck Steffens multiple times.<\/p>\n One U.S. Marshal was shot in the leg, treated for his injuries and released.<\/p>\n READ: Temple Terrace police searching for man accused of abducting, sexually assaulting 13-year-old girl<\/a><\/p>\n Courtesy: Martin County Sheriff’s Office <\/p>\n Steffens was taken to an area hospital and is expected to survive despite being struck multiple times.<\/p>\n Steffens is now facing attempted murder charges in addition to the pending sexual assault charges out of Colorado.<\/p>\n The Martin County detectives involved in the incident were not injured.<\/p>\n The Source: This article was written with information posted on social media by the Martin County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n Florida<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Courtesy: Martin County Sheriff’s Office VERO BEACH, Fla. – A former neurosurgeon and a U.S. Marshal were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[630,47,28,30,29,115,628],"class_list":["post-178086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/steffens-shootout-vehicle.jpg\")
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