As the crowd was exiting the Tuesday night basketball game between Tavares and Eustis, two shots rang out which appeared to have come from a silver car exiting the grounds of Tavares High School. Prior to the gunfire there had been a fight between a number of youths, some underage.
Security video showed some of the young men involved in the fight moving toward the silver car. A Tavares detective reviewed the security video which showed a number of young men including 20-year-old Cedric Williams of Eustis. He is a 2020 graduate of Eustis High School where he played fullback and linebacker on the football team.
Williams also appeared in the security video of the fight. None of the brawlers including Williams were located that night. When the detective was able to interview Williams on Wednesday he denied having a gun but admitted he had driven the boys involved in the fight to the game. Two Tavares students had furnished snapchat videos of the fight which showed Williams clearly had a gun in his pocket. When confronted with the videos Williams changed his story and claimed that another youth had given him the gun just before the fight broke out. He said he put the gun in his pants’ waistband when he ran to help break up the fight. When he got back into the car he said he gave the gun to another youth who told Williams he fired the gun into the air as Williams drove away from the school. The detective’s report indicates that when asked why he still drove the shooter and why he did not report the incident he advised that he planned to report it the next day.
Williams was arrested on a charge of possession of a firearm on school property, carrying a concealed firearm, discharging a firearm in public while occupying a vehicle and disrupting a school function. He was booked at the Lake County Jail with bond set at $14,500.
