Yesterday's bizarre and tragic shooting on the Florida Turnpike left two officers wounded, and Miami Marlins catcher Brett Hayes happened to be on the road just as the incident unfolded.
"Sitting in traffic on the turnpike and a man with a gun just walked by our car ... Not good," he tweeted.
Hayes tells the Herald that he was driving with his wife to a birthday party yesterday afternoon when traffic on the Turnpike stopped. He noticed a man walking by the concrete barrier in the center median, and then noticed he had a gun.
"He and I made eye contact, and he looked like he was up to no good," Hayes tells the Fish Bytes blog. "Something was very wrong. I just had a very bad feeling. My wife and I were in shock. I told her 'Do not look at him.' He was walking like he was walking down the street. It was really creepy. but his face ... it was pretty scary, to be honest with you."
Traffic briefly started moving again and Hayes and his wife continued driving on, but later he turned on the radio to discover that officers had been shot.
"My wife and I said a big, long prayer for them," Hayes said. "We heard later that they were going to be all right. What a blessing."
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