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Nassau County deputy Eric Oliver died Tuesday morning.
“He died doing what he loved to do. He was a good police officer,” Sheriff Bill Leeper said. “He worked hard and dedicated his life to protecting our county.”
The 32-year-old was a seven-year veteran of the force and leaves behind a 6-year-old daughter. The accident occurred just before 7:30 a.m. near the intersection of State Road 200 and Chester Road in Yulee.
Leeper confirmed Oliver was chasing a suspect on foot when he was struck by a SUV. The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office sent K-9 officers into the woods near the Gate gas station by Hampton Bay Drive to search for a Hispanic male suspect.
Witness Tim Jubito gave his account to our sister newspaper, the News-Leader.
“We were sitting over here at the Whataburger, and we noticed that we had a county police officer pulled over here at the Gate station. And we seen some people get together – you know, four or five people in a bundle – and then we didn’t pay no more attention. We just sensed somebody was in trouble over here. And then all of a sudden we seen, noticed they took off running out toward the hedges toward 200.
“And then the next thing you know, we seen the car pull off to the side, and then we noticed that somebody got hit by the car and was laying in the road. And then we came out, we watched them doing CPR on the person that was in the road. We didn’t know who or what, but they done that and the rescue pulled up. And then a few minutes later, we seen them put the blanket on the body there. Now we just confirmed that it was a sheriff’s police officer that got hit. He was in pursuit of somebody, but nobody knows who. That’s all we know.”
The last NCSO officer to die in an automobile accident was Chief Bailiff Lewis Thomas Hailey, who died Sept. 15, 1992 while on the way to his Callahan home from what is now the Historic Courthouse in Fernandina Beach.
The Fraternal Order of Police in Jacksonville tweeted, “The Thin Blue Line in NE Florida just got thinner as we’ve lost a Brother from the Nassau County Sheriff’s...”
