{"id":178784,"date":"2026-03-05T03:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/178784\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:52:07","slug":"jacksonville-man-charged-with-murder-for-alleged-role-in-baymeadows-road-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/178784\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville man charged with murder for alleged role in Baymeadows Road shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man, already in jail on a molestation charge, is accused of participating in an attempted armed robbery during which his alleged co-offender was killed.<\/p>\n

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville man was arrested for murder Wednesday for his alleged role in an 2025 armed robbery-gone-wrong, and police didn’t have to try too hard to find him \u2014 he was already behind bars.<\/p>\n

Damon Thomas, 45, is accused of attempting to rob the owner of a business on Baymeadows Road with 32-year-old Rhoderius Simmons in November. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office says that Simmons was shot during an exchange of gunfire with the owner.<\/p>\n

“While Simmons passed away in the parking lot, Thomas drove off from the area,” the sheriff’s office said in a social media post.<\/a><\/p>\n

Under Florida law, suspects can be charged with murder if a co-offender is killed or kills someone else during the commission of a felony. In addition, Thomas was arrested for attempted murder, possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and attempted armed robbery.<\/p>\n

Thomas was already in the Duval County jail Wednesday. He had previously been arrested in December 2025 after allegedly molesting a child earlier that year. He has pleaded not guilty to that charge and is expected to go to trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man, already in jail on a molestation charge, is accused of participating in an attempted armed robbery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-178784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178784","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=178784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}