The Lee County Sheriff's Office says it arrested two Lehigh Acres men on Wednesday over the July house party shooting near Willard Avenue that wounded four people, and that a licence plate reader is what put investigators on the car

The Lee County Sheriff's Office says two Lehigh Acres men were arrested on Wednesday over the July 10 shooting that wounded four people at a house party in Lehigh Acres, a case that had been quiet since surveillance images went out the week it happened. The identification was reported by Damien Alvarado at WINK News. The arrest and the charges come from a statement the sheriff's office published in the newsroom feed on its own website.

The sheriff's office names the two as Desmond Garlin and Jared Williams, and lists dates of birth of 04/10/2008 and 12/22/2006, which make Garlin 18 and Williams 19. It says Violent Crimes Detectives arrested both on Wednesday, and that they are charged with attempted second-degree murder and with possession of a firearm by a Florida juvenile delinquent. According to WINK News, the sheriff said the shooting happened during a crowded house party near Willard Avenue and West 9th Street, that there was what he called a beef between people at the gathering, and that a vehicle pulled up and shots were fired in multiple directions as people ran. Four people were struck. All four survived.

Marceno said the agency's Violent Crimes Unit spent hundreds of hours on the case, and that investigators used technology including automated licence plate readers to identify the two men and build the case against them.

In its own statement the sheriff's office gives a fuller account of the shooting than the press conference did. It says witnesses described an altercation on Willard Avenue, and that one of the shooters began firing on a crowd of people before running to a white Toyota from which a second shooter was firing. It says licence plate readers identified that vehicle, and that detectives then worked from victim statements and Crime Stoppers tips. It says a search warrant was executed at Garlin's home on Wednesday, with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service and the agency's own Fugitive Warrants Unit, and that both men were arrested there.

The sheriff's office has not said which of the two it believes fired from the crowd and which it believes fired from the car, and Marceno did not specify at the press conference what each man is alleged to have done.

"Violent Crimes Detectives conducted hundreds of hours of interviews, sorted through dozens of Crimestoppers tips, and used the latest and greatest pieces of technology to hunt down these violent shooters," Marceno said in the statement, adding that he anticipated a strong prosecution.

On the original incident, the sheriff's office said in July that deputies responded to reports of a shooting in the 800 block of Willard Avenue at about 1 a.m. on Friday, July 10, and that all four victims had non-life-threatening injuries. Marceno said just after 8.30 that morning that two of them remained in hospital and the other two had been treated and released. Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers released four surveillance images later the same morning showing two men, one in a red sweatshirt and blue basketball shorts and one in a black sweatshirt and blue jeans.

The sheriff said the two men have more than 40 prior bookings combined, and that much of that history came from when they were teenagers. That is his characterisation. The county's public booking search returns a short fixed list and cannot be queried by name, so this desk has not read that record and does not present the figure as one it has verified.

The investigation is open and active, the sheriff's office says, and the agency is still looking at whether anyone else was involved. Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers, which put out the images in July, takes information at 1-800-780-8477.

Marceno also used the announcement to defend licence plate reader technology against privacy objections, saying this case shows why the agency values it. That argument lands in a county where the hardware itself has been a live dispute. Four Flock licence plate reader cameras were cut down at the base of their poles at Diplomat Parkway East and Santa Barbara Boulevard in Cape Coral in late July, an incident this desk reported as the police account of how many were damaged moved from two to four.

On the injuries, the sheriff's office says four victims were treated at a local hospital for injuries that included gunshot wounds to the face, legs, hands and back. Its account of the July 10 response describes multiple victims and juveniles fleeing the scene.

The sheriff's office also says both men have what it calls lengthy, violent criminal histories with the agency. That is its characterisation. As with the prior-bookings figure given at the press conference, this desk has not read that record, because the county's public booking search returns a short fixed list and cannot be queried by name.

Garlin and Williams are accused. Neither has been tried and neither has been convicted, and everything the sheriff's office says about what they did is an allegation until a court finds otherwise. An arrest is not a finding of guilt. Nothing has been published anywhere this desk could reach about how either man answers the charges, and no reader should draw any inference from that silence.

Correction and update, August 13, 2026, 4.30 p.m. ET. An earlier version of this item said that whether either man was in custody was not on the record, that no arrest had been announced by the sheriff's office, and that the agency publishes no case releases in its own newsroom. All three statements were wrong. The Lee County Sheriff's Office had published a full statement on its own website at about 3.28 p.m., roughly twenty-two minutes before this item went up, announcing that both men were arrested on Wednesday and charged with attempted second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a Florida juvenile delinquent. This desk queried two of the agency's endpoints, found only community and safety-tip items, and wrongly concluded the agency does not publish case releases; it does, in a feed on its home page that was not checked. The item has been rewritten around that statement. The earlier version also gave Jared Williams's age as 20, following the WINK News report it was sourced to. The sheriff's office lists his date of birth as 12/22/2006, which makes him 19. That is corrected above. The headline and the summary have been rewritten for the same reason, and the original said the investigation was open and active, which the sheriff's office continues to say.