{"id":185000,"date":"2026-03-10T01:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T01:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185000\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T01:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T01:02:07","slug":"man-accused-of-shooting-at-kids-riding-on-atvs-in-longwood-subdivision-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185000\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of shooting at kids riding on ATVs in Longwood subdivision, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LONGWOOD, Fla. – A man was arrested Saturday after police say he fired multiple shots at two juveniles riding all-terrain vehicles in a Longwood neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The arrest came after Longwood police officers responded to shots-fired in the Bay Meadow Farms subdivision on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

Initially, witnesses told police they thought heard fireworks going off around 10 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX LOCAL APP<\/a><\/p>\n

However, two kids told an adult relative that a man fired approximately six shots at them while they were riding on a power line easement west of the subdivision. Investigators said they later located a witness and collected physical and ballistic evidence supporting the juveniles\u2019 account.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Police identified the shooter as 36-year-old David Allen Mertle. He surrendered without incident and was arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Mertle faces two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a third-degree felony, and one count of discharging a firearm in public or on residential property, a first-degree misdemeanor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Source: This story was written based on information shared by the Longwood Police Department.<\/p>\n

Seminole County News<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Longwood<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONGWOOD, Fla. – A man was arrested Saturday after police say he fired multiple shots at two juveniles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[630,47,3573,115,139,141,140,1014,628],"class_list":["post-185000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-longwood","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-seminole-county","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185000","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=185000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}