Spring Hill man shot, killed by Hernando deputy next door to senator’s home

SPRING HILL — A Hernando County sheriff’s deputy has been placed on paid administrative leave while state officials analyze how the agency’s attempt to serve an arrest warrant to a 61-year-old man early Saturday ended in his death.

The agency has not named the deputy who fatally shot Gary Jean Schryver just before 3 a.m. Saturday morning, but stressed that it’s standard protocol for any law enforcement officer involved in a shooting to be placed on paid leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducts an investigation.

Details about what led to the shooting were just beginning to emerge Monday. According to the Sheriff’s Office, deputies were sent to Schryver’s home at about 2:40 a.m. with a warrant for his arrest on felony charges of grand theft and trafficking in stolen property.

It remains unclear, though, what instigated the shooting once deputies arrived at 12480 Feather Street — Schryver’s home inside a sprawling, stately neighborhood near Veterans Memorial Park in Spring Hill. No deputies were injured in the shooting, but Schryver suffered a fatal gunshot wound and died in his home, the agency said.

Hernando jail records show Schryver had been arrested multiple times on charges including drunken driving, fraud and larceny. Records from the state Department of Corrections show he was sentenced in 2012 to two years in prison on a Pasco County charge for robbery with a deadly weapon and, in 2018, was given a three-year sentence on Hernando County charges of grand theft, trafficking in stolen property and giving false information to a pawnbroker.

State prison records show Schryver was released on July 9, 2021, and his drug offender probation was scheduled to end in 2024.

According to county property records, Schryver’s brother and sister-in-law own the home where Schryver, who was unemployed, was living. Directly next door to the house where the shooting occurred is a home owned by Florida Sen. Blaise Ingoglia. Ingoglia, the Republican representative for District 35, did not respond to calls requesting comments on this story by the time of publication.

The fatal shooting Saturday wasn’t the first time Schryver had been shot by a Hernando deputy. According to an investigative report from the FDLE, Schryver told investigators he instigated a February 2018 shootout on purpose by waving a fake gun around a local Family Dollar store and acting erratically. He said he then called 911 to report a man with a gun in the store, gave a description of himself and began slowly walking back to his home as deputies arrived at the scene.

Eventually, Schryver was stopped by deputies at the intersection of Marble and Antelope streets, about two blocks from the house on Feather Street. He refused to answer the deputies’ questions or take his hands out of his pockets, the FDLE report said, at which time a deputy fired a bullet into Schryver’s left hip.

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Then, the report said, deputies saw that Schryver wasn’t holding a weapon at all. Instead, he had used black electrical tape to attach two wooden blocks together in the shape of a gun.

According to the FDLE report, Schryver — then 57 — told investigators he “had set out a plan to end his life” and “wanted the deputy to shoot him.” The deputy who pulled the trigger was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing by both state and internal investigations into the incident.

Schryver had just moved into the home on Feather Street and had fallen into a deep depression at the time of the 2018 shooting, the FDLE report said. He received treatment for his injuries and mental health at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point in Hudson, the report said.

Investigators have yet to say if Schryver was armed with a real weapon during the Saturday shooting that ended his life.