PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Police have released new details about the Port St. Lucie Police Sergeant who was wounded by gunfire during an officer-involved shooting Monday.<\/p>\n
The police chief says Sgt. Erik LeVasseur was flown to an undisclosed medical center Tuesday night to have surgery on both of his eyes and the surgery was done Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
He had shrapnel in both eyes from the shooting Monday. A total of 72 shots were fired, including 10 shots fired by the gunman and 62 shots fired by police.<\/p>\n
“All the shrapnel that could be removed, was removed from his eyes, and he’s currently recovering from that procedure. At this point, we’re not aware of the level of his eye function. But he’s a very strong man with a very strong will, and we’re confident that he’s going to make a strong recovery at this point. So we feel he’s out of the woods,” said Leo Niemczyk, Port St. Lucie Police Chief.<\/p>\n
See also: Fort Pierce city manager appoints new top cop<\/a><\/p>\n Day by day, Sgt. Erik Levasseur’s fellow officers and colleagues at the Port St. Lucie Police Department pray for his recovery.<\/p>\n The incident during which he was shot twice in the face on Monday night was caught on bodycam video.<\/p>\n Port St. Lucie Police responded to a home on SW Lake Park Drive in the Tradition Town Park neighborhood shortly after 6 Monday night.<\/p>\n They encountered Frankie Riccio, 32, with an AK-47 assault rifle.<\/p>\n “He had medical-grade marijuana that he had in his possession a fairly large quantity, and his mother had reported that he’d been using it for days,” Chief Niemczyk said.<\/p>\n Police say Riccio pointed his rifle at a neighbor, who called 911 and Riccio’s mother also called 911.<\/p>\n “He was acting crazy the last couple of days and when she called 911, she said he’s acting crazy. Please come and take him away. He’s armed himself and he’s outside with a hunting rifle, is what she said,” Chief Niemczyk explained. <\/p>\n When police arrived, the chief says Riccio was in the garage with an AK-47.<\/p>\n “They took a position. The vehicle began announcing, calling him out, asking him to step out. And he did step out, immediately turning towards Sgt. LeVasseur and firing on him,” Chief Niemczyk said.<\/p>\n Sgt. LeVasseur was shot twice in the face.<\/p>\n The police chief says other officers took cover behind a police vehicle.<\/p>\n “Once he was done firing on Sgt. LeVasseur, he crossed the street to go to the opposite side of the patrol car and fire on the officers. They had to quickly maneuver around to the other side to avoid getting shot and return fire,” he said.<\/p>\n The Police Chief says a total of 72 shots were fired during the gun battle.<\/p>\n “I think, based on what I’m being told, and I’ve never met this man, that it was a drug-induced state that he was in. His Mom said that he was something along the lines of delusional and hallucinating. So I think it was more likely substance in this case. He has no history that we have identified of mental health crisis. He owns about 20 weapons in total. He had a very large I’ll call it an arsenal within his home. He had two gun safes full. He had gas masks, ballistic vests, non-perishable survival food. He also had a flash-bang. It looked like he was ready. I don’t know a whole lot about this man at this point and his history, but it’s concerning that he’s preparing himself for some type of battle at some point,” Chief Niemczyk said. <\/p>\n Police say they’re looking into Riccio’s online social media activity to see if they can learn more about why he had so many guns and whether he was planning some type of violence.<\/p>\n Sgt. LeVasseur is expected to return to HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Ft. Pierce within the next two days to continue his recovery there.<\/p>\n Find more ways to stay up to date with your latest local news. Sign up for our newsletter <\/a>to get the day’s top headlines delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our YouTube channel <\/a>for the biggest stories and can’t miss video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Police have released new details about the Port St. Lucie Police Sergeant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-72208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72208","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=72208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}