A 72-year-old former neurosurgeon wanted for sexual assault charges in Colorado ended up in a shootout on Florida\u2019s Treasure Coast with the U.S. Marshals Service that left one marshal and the wanted man wounded, according to the Martin County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Sheriff\u2019s detectives from both Martin and Indian River counties were assisting with U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force to serve a warrant for the arrest of Thomas Earl Steffens in Indian River County on Monday that led to the gunfight, according to a Facebook update from the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The suspect \u201cwas wanted out of Colorado on charges alleging he drugged a victim with prescription medications he obtained and then sexually assaulted her,\u201d the post stated.<\/p>\n
The task force had information that Steffens was traveling by bus to the Treasure Coast and \u201chad reportedly stated he would not be taken into custody alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The task force located a vehicle he was traveling in as a passenger and conducted a traffic stop, the post stated.<\/p>\n
It said Steffens refused to exit the vehicle and then opened fire on the five members of the task force from inside the car.<\/p>\n
They returned fire and struck Steffens multiple times. An image posted by the sheriff\u2019s office showed the vehicle with nearly 30 large-caliber bullet holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the exchange of gunfire, one U.S. marshal was shot in the leg and was treated for his injuries and released,\u201d the post stated. \u201cSteffens was transported to a local hospital. Despite being struck multiple times by Task Force members, he is expected to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steffens faces the pending sexual assault charges out of Colorado and now attempted murder charges related to the shooting, the post stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 72-year-old former neurosurgeon wanted for sexual assault charges in Colorado ended up in a shootout on Florida\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[112,28,30,29,114,115,109],"class_list":["post-180825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180825","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=180825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}