Gainesville man arrested on attempted murder charge following 5-hour stand-off

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Torrance Terrelle Lee, 38, was arrested late last night and charged with attempted homicide and resisting arrest without violence after allegedly stabbing a man and refusing to come out of his bedroom for five hours while officers negotiated with him.

At about 9:45 p.m. on Monday night, an employee at the Circle K at 3838 N. Main Street called 911 to report a man that had been stabbed multiple times and had lost a lot of blood. Gainesville Police Department officers found the man near the entrance of the convenience store and used trauma kits until EMS arrived to transport the victim to the hospital. Before he was transported, the victim reportedly said he did not know who stabbed him but provided a location in the Highland Court Manor neighborhood. A GPD K-9 team went to the intersection of NE 31st Avenue and NE 12th Street for an article search, and the K-9 showed interest in a front yard in the 2800 block of NE 12th Street where fresh blood was found in the dirt.

The victim told officers he was hanging out with two other people and decided to go into the back yard to relieve himself; he heard someone come up quietly behind him, and when he turned around, the man accused the victim of stealing his lighter. When the victim denied stealing the lighter, the man attacked him, put him in a choke hold, and started stabbing him. The victim said he saw the man coming at him with a knife and tried to turn away, but the man stabbed him in the neck and then continued to stab him multiple times. The victim said the man fled northbound on NE 12th Street, and the victim went to seek help at the Circle K.

An officer contacted the victim’s two friends, who said they were hanging out when a man approached them. They said the man followed the victim to the back yard, but they didn’t know what happened. One witness said the victim told him he needed an ambulance, but he didn’t know at the time that he had been stabbed. Another witness said he didn’t know the man but saw him and the victim wrestling. He said he saw blood on the victim’s shirt but didn’t know at the time that he had been stabbed.

A witness in the area told an officer that the unknown man’s name was “Torrance,” and a detective provided Lee’s full name and address, which is north of the incident location on NE 12th Street. The victim positively identified Lee on Tuesday afternoon in a photo line-up.

Officers went to Lee’s home at about 6 p.m. last night after Lee’s family called 911 to report that he was acting erratically. Lee allegedly ignored commands to come out of his room and stacked furniture against his bedroom door to prevent officers from entering; he was believed to have a knife. The other residents of the house were evacuated, and the City provided an RTS bus as a place for members of the family to wait. Gainesville Fire Rescue was also on standby.

The Negotiation Response Team attempted to communicate with Lee for several hours, then the SWAT team responded and was able to detain him at about 11:10 p.m. after deploying gas. Lee was transported to the hospital due to the deployment of gas and was booked into the jail after being cleared by medical personnel.

Lee has been charged with attempted homicide and resisting arrest without violence. He has four felony convictions (all violent) and four misdemeanor convictions (three violent) and has served two state prison sentences, with his most recent release in 2017. Judge Thomas Jaworski set bail at $1,005,000.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.