Police investigating death of Larry Simpson at a Florida shooting range
Polk County deputies are investigating the death of a man at a central Florida area shooting range.
Larry Simpson, age 71, died Sunday after he was shot in the chest at the Tenoroc Mine Shooting Range.
Authorities say Simpson was operating one of the remote controls on a trap machine on the clays course with a friend shooting a shotright right next to him.
Managers at the range vouched that Simpson knew gun safety.
“He was very well known in the sporting clays community. He was a very active shooter,” said John Weatherholt, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Simpson’s experience makes Sunday’s incident all the more mysterious to investigators.
Deputies say his friend, Jaime Gonzalez, was shooting clays when he said he turned around after hearing a bang. His friend was dead with his own shotgun beside him, according to deputies.
Detectives are conducting tests to figure out how it happened, the autopsy results are imminent.
photo Brandon Jones
