A man was shot dead outside a Tallahassee lodge in the early hours of Halloween, and by mid-morning police had a 25-year-old suspect in custody on a second-degree murder charge. The Tallahassee Police Department said officers were called to the Jackson Masonic Lodge at about 1:39 a.m. on Saturday, October 31, 2026, after a shooting was reported there, and found an adult man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Source: WTXL / Fox 49 (Tallahassee Police Department statement)
The lodge stands at 2818 Apalachee Parkway, one of the main roads running through Florida's capital city. A Tallahassee police watch commander told the Tallahassee Democrat that he believed the shooting happened outside the lodge, which is booked out for private events, and that the investigation was still in its preliminary stages when officers first described it.
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (USA Today Network)
Officers attempted life-saving measures at the scene before the man was taken to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries, police said. The department has not publicly identified the man who was killed, and this report does not name him, because Tallahassee police have not released his name in either of their public statements on the case.
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (USA Today Network)
What police say happened between the two men
In its arrest announcement, published on Monday, November 2, the Tallahassee Police Department said investigators believe the shooting followed an encounter between the victim and the suspect that turned into a verbal altercation. Police allege that during that argument the suspect produced a handgun and shot the victim. That account is the police allegation at the centre of the charge; it has not been tested in court.
Source: WTXL / Fox 49 (Tallahassee Police Department statement)
Detectives with the department's Violent Crimes Unit developed information identifying the suspect as Deronco V. Parker Jr., 25, police said. At about 10:44 a.m. on October 31 — roughly nine hours after the shooting — Parker was located and taken into custody with the assistance of the United States Marshals Service, the Violent Crimes Unit and the department's Career Criminal Unit, according to the police statement.
Source: WTXL / Fox 49 (Tallahassee Police Department statement)
Parker is charged with second-degree murder. A charge is an allegation, not a finding of guilt, and Parker is presumed innocent unless and until the state proves its case in court. Under Florida law, second-degree murder is generally prosecuted as a first-degree felony — among the most serious charges in the state system — and the case will now move through the courts in Leon County.
The lodge shooting was the latest in a violent week for the capital
The Jackson Lodge killing did not happen in isolation. The Tallahassee Democrat reported that the Apalachee Parkway homicide brought the toll to at least 16 people shot in six incidents in the city since October 24, although police determined that one of those incidents was an accidental discharge and another was classified as a Stand Your Ground case.
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (USA Today Network)
That violent stretch began on October 24 with a mass shooting near Florida A&M University's Bragg Memorial Stadium following the university's homecoming football game, in which 11 people were injured, including six children. A 15-year-old was later arrested in that case. The Democrat's own gun-violence tracking for the capital city and Leon County counts at least 52 serious shootings so far this year — incidents involving injury, death or a clear risk of serious harm — in which 14 people have been killed and 47 injured.
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (USA Today Network)
What happens next
The police investigation remains open and active, and detectives are still asking anyone who witnessed the shooting, or who has information about it, to contact the Tallahassee Police Department at 850-891-4200. Parker now faces the second-degree murder charge through the Leon County court process, where prosecutors must decide how to present the state's case and a court — not the police announcement — will determine what actually happened outside the lodge that night. For a capital city still counting the cost of its October shooting spike, the court case is only the next step; the wider question city leaders face is why so many arguments in Tallahassee this autumn have ended with gunfire.