Five panicked teens called 911 last month after a former Mayo Clinic doctor allegedly fired a gun during a road range incident near Sawgrass Village.
“Ma’am! Ma’am! There’s someone chasing us, they just shot a gun in the air!” one of the boys can be heard telling a dispatcher on May 17. “He’s crazy! He’s crazy!”
The frantic teen states that he was on A1A near Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, and that Dr. Bruce Mitchell was careening after them in his SUV.
“He shot a gun in the air!” he said. “I swear to God, ma’am. “I swear to God!”
The boy later told the dispatcher that he could see two St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputies approaching the area at high speed.
“Two police cars are flying down to get him,” he said with a measure of relief, noting that Mitchell had driven recklessly during the pursuit.
“The only time we weren’t in front of him is when he tried to cut us off,” he said. “But there was a biker so he had to slam on his brakes. And that’s when he pulled out the gun fully out of his car and put a shot in the air. We had to speed up and get away.”
The dispatcher then asks the boys — who were listening on over their car’s speaker — what led up to the incident.
“Honestly, we were probably being dumb,” one of them can be heard saying after a delay. “We had some cheese and someone in the car threw it. I don’t even think it hit his car. But then we just saw him come out of nowhere.”
The veteran physician was taken into custody near the scene and now faces several felony counts stemming from the confrontation.
A search of his vehicle turned up a Sig Sauer handgun in the glovebox, a spare magazine on the passenger seat and two additional live rounds, one on the seat and one on the floor.
According to court papers, Mitchell initially claimed “they shot at me first,” but later invoked his right to remain silent.
Police said they found no evidence that the teens fired a gun or had one in their possession at the time.
Mitchell, 67, who worked at both the Mayo Clinic in Jackosnville and at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, pleaded not guilty and is out on bond. His case is pending.
Mitchell’s attorney, Brian Coughlin, has declined to comment on the matter.
