Sergeant Ben P. Wilder, Jr.

Ben P. Wilder, Jr.

Sergeant Ben Wilder was shot and killed while he and two other deputies were attempting to serve an arrest warrant on an individual who had fired a shotgun at a relative during an argument over possession of an electric fan.

Sergeant Wilder and one deputy were at the front door of the house on Wiggins Road, two mile south of Highway 92 in Plant City, when the other deputies looked through a carport window into the living room of the house and saw the suspect at the front door with a shotgun. The suspect fired the shotgun through the closed jalousie glass of the door, striking Sergeant Wilder in the head and striking the second deputy in the left forearm. Sergeant Wilder died immediately; the second deputy later had his arm amputated.

Law enforcement officers from a variety of state and local agencies responded to the scene and surrounded the house in the darkness. After multiple rounds of tear gas were fired into the house, the killer came out the front door, pointed his shotgun at a nearby deputy and was immediately shot and killed by police gunfire.

Sergeant Wilder had been with the agency for eight years.