Gainesville Police: Suspect dead, officer OK after overnight standoff, shooting

UPDATE: Friday, Mar. 20, 2026, at 11:30 a.m.:

A suspect is dead and a Gainesville Police officer has been released from the hospital after a shooting at a neighborhood on the north side of the city early Friday morning.

Gainesville Police Chief Jay Parrish held a press conference late Friday morning, Mar. 20, several hours after the shooting in the Sunset Heights neighborhood off of U.S. 129 that happened just before 5:30 a.m. That shooting left the suspect, Dakota Levi Simmons, age 24 of Gainesville, dead.

Parrish said the shooting was the result of an hours-long standoff between Simmons and law enforcement that began with a domestic call late Thursday night…

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