Police Need Your Help Finding New Smyrna Beach Shooter

A man exchanged fire with another driver during a road-rage incident in New Smyrna Beach. Now the police need your help

Police carMatt Popovich

The police have turned to the public to ask for help locating a suspect who's accused of shooting someone in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Isaac Joseph Newburry is the name of the suspect in question and the New Smyrna Beach police have released a photo of the suspect in the hopes that someone will recognize him and hand him over into police custody.

The alleged incident happened on Sunday during a road rage incident where the suspect is believed to have drawn a weapon and fired at someone in another vehicle out of anger. While there's yet little in the way of details, the suspect is a caucasian male with short hair and a goatee. See the photograph they've released of the suspect below.

Isaac Joseph NewburryNew Smyrna Beach Police Department

The man is currently wanted on charges of felony criminal mischief, discharging a firearm at a vehicle, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. Several of these charges carry stiff penalties.

Whether anyone was injured or whether Isaac Joseph Newburry just fired at a driver's vehicle is not known, but the man certain discharged his weapon in traffic at another vehicle.

This comes in the wake of a slew of violent crimes in the New Smyrna Beach area, with several shootings and several stabbings occurring over one weekend in late April alone. Back in April, 27-year-old Clifton Hafner was shot and killed in Deland and another man was shot and critically wounded all in the same weekend in New Smyrna Beach, meaning the Volusia County Sheriff's Department has its hands full with these investigations.

The unnamed man shot and critically wounded in New Smyrna Beach in April was shot near the 600 block of Greenlawn Street at about 9 p.m. on April 26th, 2021, New Smyrna Beach police Lt. Christopher Kirk said.

As usual, a reward is being offered for anyone who offers any tips that lead to arrests or any information that may be of use to locating and detaining the suspects at large. If you know anything that might be of use to officers, you can call 386-424-2000 or Crime Stoppers at 888-277-TIPS and callers who provide information that assists in the capture of these fugitives will be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000.

As of 2019, violent crime was experiencing a slight decline in Volusia County, but time will tell what the 2020 and 2021 numbers pan out to be. 2020 saw a massive rise in violent crime throughout the United States, with 2020 ending one of the most violent years we've experienced since the 1990s and nobody can quite figure out why.

Violent occurrences are on the rise in cities and states that had restrictions related to the pandemic and cities and states without them. The rise in violence also holds true in both progressive and conservative cities, so the idea that these crimes are politically motivated or solely driven by the pandemic has gone right out the window.

Which begs the question: why is this rise in violent crime happening? Some have hypothesized it might have something to do with social media use, something that's being proven more and more to create mental health crises and other negative effects in the minds of some users (though certainly not all).

Time will tell, and hopefully, the best, most brilliant minds figure it out soon.

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