Published on May 14, 2025 at 11:25 am
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Jacksonville police shot and killed a man late Tuesday after a long SWAT standoff at a home on Lenox Avenue.
Officers were called to the home just after 8 p.m. following reports of someone firing a gun, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said.
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When police got there, Calixto Beabenutti, 44, walked out with a gun, shouted at the officers, then went back inside.
SWAT was called in to get him out of the home. He fired one shot fired at them as they arrived, police said.
Over a few hours, Beabenutti would walk out, point the gun, then go back inside, Chief Alan Parker said.
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“At the end, he finally comes out the front door. He is still not complying with their commands, and he walks over to go to a neighboring residence,” Parker said. “They engage him in a yard before he gets to the residence — they are saying stop, drop the gun. He doesn’t — he tries to get up to get into that neighboring residence, and that’s when they had to shoot him.”
Beabenutti died at the scene. Parker said he apparently had some issues and had been drinking. It is unclear whether anyone was in the home where he was or the one he was trying to get into.
“This was the situation we were put into tonight — that gentleman could not be allowed to enter into another residence,” Sheriff T.K. Waters said. “You cannot allow him to take a hostage.”
This was the ninth officer shooting for the Sheriff’s Office this year, one more than all of last year.
Waters was asked at the scene what he would say to people who have questions about that number. He said those questions should be directed at “the individuals that put us in this situation.”
“We show up because we are called, which is our responsibility,” Waters said. “I think you are asking us to get into the minds of individuals that come out with knives and guns. We can’t do that. What we have to do is follow a set of circumstances, follow a set of rules. And when you put us in a situation that forces us to use deadly force, we’re going to do that.”
SWAT officers Kody Crews, Phillip McCranie, and Shane Lyons shot Beabenutti. This was the first officer shooting for Lyons, the second for Cruz and the third for McCranie, police said.
