Man Charged With Attempted Murder After a Shooting in the Orange County Courthouse Parking Garage

The Orange County Sheriff's Office has charged a 26-year-old man with attempted first-degree murder following a shooting in a parking garage adjacent to the Orange County Courthouse in downtown Orlando. Deputies identified the man as Kenneth Jerome Logan Jr., who was taken into custody hours after the incident.

According to the sheriff's office, deputies responded to the garage around 11:25 a.m. on September 23 in reference to shots fired. Investigators said a woman was shot at by a person she knew and that she was not injured. The suspect left the scene before deputies arrived and was located and arrested that afternoon.

The charges filed include attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm classified as domestic violence, false imprisonment and battery, among others. Logan has been charged but not tried, and he is presumed innocent unless and until convicted.

What deputies described

The sheriff's office characterized the incident as involving parties known to one another rather than a random attack, and the domestic violence classification on two of the counts reflects the relationship element that Florida law requires for that designation.

The location produced a substantial law enforcement response. A report of shots fired at a parking structure attached to a county courthouse triggers protocols that treat the courthouse itself as a potential target until investigators establish otherwise.

Courthouse operations were affected while deputies secured the area and conducted the initial investigation, and multiple agencies responded to the scene given the proximity to the judicial complex.

The woman was not struck, which is the fact that distinguishes the charge of attempted murder from a completed homicide.

The charges explained

Attempted first-degree murder with a firearm requires proof that the defendant took an overt act toward killing another person with premeditated intent and that a firearm was used. Under Florida's firearm sentencing statutes, discharge of a firearm during certain offenses carries substantial mandatory minimum terms.

Aggravated battery with a firearm involves intentionally causing great bodily harm, permanent disability or disfigurement, or using a deadly weapon in the commission of a battery. The two counts charged carry the domestic violence designation.

False imprisonment is the unlawful confinement or restraint of another person against their will, a separate felony under Florida law that is frequently charged alongside domestic violence offenses.

Battery is the intentional touching or striking of another person against their will, and it is charged here as an additional count reflecting conduct distinct from the firearm allegations.

Florida's firearm sentencing rules

Florida's sentencing framework for firearm offenses, commonly known by the phrase used to describe its escalating structure, imposes mandatory minimum prison terms that a judge cannot reduce.

Possession of a firearm during an enumerated felony carries a mandatory minimum. Discharging the firearm raises it. Discharging it and causing great bodily harm or death raises it substantially further.

Those mandatory minimums apply independently of the sentencing guidelines score and independently of any mitigating circumstances a judge might otherwise consider.

The practical effect in cases like this one is that the firearm allegations, rather than the underlying offense classification, often determine the sentencing exposure.

Courthouse security in Florida

Florida courthouses operate with screening at public entrances, with sheriff's deputies or court security officers staffing magnetometers and controlling access to courtrooms and judicial chambers.

Parking garages present a different security posture. They are typically open structures serving the public, jurors, attorneys, court staff and people attending hearings, and comprehensive screening is not practical at a facility designed for vehicle throughput.

That gap is a recognized challenge in court security planning nationally. Incidents at or near courthouses frequently occur in the approaches rather than inside the secured perimeter.

The Orange County Courthouse complex in downtown Orlando serves the Ninth Judicial Circuit, covering Orange and Osceola counties, and handles a substantial volume of civil, criminal and family law matters daily.

The domestic violence context

Florida law defines domestic violence to include assault, battery, stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment and other offenses resulting in physical injury or death when committed by one family or household member against another.

The designation carries consequences beyond the underlying charge, including restrictions on pretrial release, mandatory no-contact provisions and eligibility for enhanced sentencing considerations.

Courthouses are a recurring setting for domestic violence incidents nationally because they are where injunction hearings, custody proceedings and dissolution matters are heard, bringing parties into proximity at moments of acute conflict.

Florida courts can issue injunctions for protection against domestic violence, and violation of such an injunction is itself a criminal offense.

What happens procedurally

Following arrest, a defendant appears at first appearance within 24 hours, where a judge reviews probable cause, advises the defendant of the charges and addresses pretrial release.

The State Attorney's Office for the Ninth Judicial Circuit will review the investigation and make a formal filing decision, which may adopt, modify or decline the charges as presented at arrest.

If charges are filed, arraignment follows, then discovery, pretrial motions and either resolution by plea or trial. The majority of Florida felony cases resolve without trial.

Defendants unable to afford counsel are represented by the Public Defender's Office for the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

What it means for Central Florida

For people with business at the Orange County Courthouse, the incident is a reminder that the secure perimeter begins at the building entrance rather than at the property line.

For domestic violence survivors, court appearances can be among the highest-risk moments, and Florida courts and victim advocacy organizations offer safety planning specifically around hearing dates.

Harbor House of Central Florida and similar organizations provide advocacy, shelter and court accompaniment services in the Orlando area, and the statewide domestic violence hotline operates around the clock.

For the sheriff's office, the rapid arrest after the suspect left the scene is the operational outcome the agency will point to in describing its response.

The presumption of innocence

Logan has been arrested and charged. He has not been tried or convicted. The accounts described here come from law enforcement at the arrest stage and have not been tested in any adversarial proceeding.

Probable cause, the standard for an arrest, is substantially lower than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard for a conviction.

Charges filed at arrest frequently change during prosecutorial review, and the counts that ultimately proceed may differ from those listed at booking.

Florida's broad public records law means arrest information becomes public quickly, well before any judicial testing of the allegations.

Orange County's law enforcement structure

Central Florida's policing is divided among several agencies whose jurisdictions overlap in downtown Orlando. The Orange County Sheriff's Office serves unincorporated Orange County and provides court security and detention services countywide, while the Orlando Police Department handles municipal jurisdiction within city limits. Incidents at county facilities inside the city frequently draw both.

The sheriff's office is among the largest law enforcement agencies in Florida, serving a county of roughly 1.4 million permanent residents plus a tourist population that adds tens of millions of visitors annually. That visitor volume gives Orange County a policing profile unlike any other Florida county, with a resident-to-incident ratio distorted by the transient population.

The agency has also been active in proactive investigations. Separately in late September, Orange County deputies arrested a theme park employee accused of sending messages to what he believed was a 14-year-old but was in fact an undercover deputy, one of a category of online predator investigations Florida agencies conduct regularly.

Court security specifically falls to the sheriff under Florida law, which makes the agency responsible for screening, courtroom security and the secure transport of in-custody defendants at the judicial complex where this shooting occurred.

Firearm violence and Florida's legal landscape

Florida's firearm laws have shifted meaningfully over the past several years, including changes to permitting requirements that removed the license mandate for concealed carry by eligible adults. Those changes altered who may lawfully carry but did not change the criminal statutes governing the use of a firearm against another person, which remain among the most severe in the country.

The state also maintains risk protection orders, a mechanism enacted after the Parkland shooting that allows law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from a person found to pose a significant danger to themselves or others. Florida agencies have used that authority thousands of times since its enactment, with usage varying substantially by county.

Domestic violence injunctions carry their own firearm surrender provisions under Florida law, requiring a respondent subject to a final injunction to surrender firearms and ammunition. Enforcement of those provisions has been inconsistent across jurisdictions, a gap that advocacy organizations have documented repeatedly.

Whether any of those mechanisms were relevant in this case is not something the available information establishes, and the charges as filed address conduct rather than the lawfulness of possession. The broader legal landscape nonetheless shapes how Florida agencies approach cases in which a firearm is used against a person known to the accused.

What's next

The case proceeds through the Ninth Judicial Circuit, with hearing dates set through the Orange County Clerk of Courts, whose docket is publicly searchable.

The State Attorney's filing decision is the next substantive milestone and will determine the charges the case actually proceeds on.

Court security at the courthouse complex may be reviewed following the incident, as agencies commonly conduct after-action assessments of events at judicial facilities.

Anyone with information about the incident can contact the Orange County Sheriff's Office or submit an anonymous tip through Crimeline.