V.A. CLINIC SHOOTING U.S. Attorney indicts Cometa

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the middle district of Florida has released an indictment against a 60-year-old Army veteran accused of entering a Veterans Affairs clinic this month and firing shots from an automatic rifle.

During the incident, Stephen Cometa was disarmed and detained by people on site and law enforcement with the V.A. clinic. The shooting happened at the Veterans Affairs clinic in the Marion County corner of the The Villages

Cometa, who had moved to a gated Ocala retirement community from The Villages a few months before the Dec. 13 incident, has been on suicide watch at the Marion County Jail.

Jail records show he was been released from the jail at 10:13 a.m. Wednesday and is now in federal custody, according to a spokesman at the U.S. Attorney Office in Tampa. A hearing in federal court was slated for the next day but was canceled. There has been no word on when his next court date will be.

The five-page indictment notes Cometa “did knowingly and forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, and interfere with a person hereinafter referred to as ‘M.P.,’ an employee of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.” M.P. — initials for the employee — was using of “a deadly and dangerous weapon,” described as a firearm.

The indictment states if Cometa is convicted, he would have to give up “all firearms and ammunition involved in or used in the violation.” The property listed in the indictment included an “Anderson Manufacturing rifle, a Taurus pistol, Tulammo ammunition, and Hornady ammunition.”

If for any reason any of the property cannot be produced, then, as per the indictment, the government “shall be entitled to forfeiture of substitute property.”

Charged with forcible assault of a federal employee and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, Cometa is accused of driving to the V.A. Outpatient Clinic in The Villages at 8900 SE Mulberry Lane. Once inside, he banged on the door. When the door was opened, officials report, he pointed the gun — an AM-15 rifle — at a doctor and told him he would “have to listen to me.”

There was a struggle between Cometa, the doctor and one of two civilians inside the room and a shot was fired, according to officers. Two V.A. police officers arrived. While struggling with Cometa for the weapon, another shot was fired. The weapon was eventually wrestled away from Cometa, according to law enforcement.

Officials said Cometa had two loaded ammunition magazines with him, which were taped together for easier loading; each contained 26 rounds of ammunition. A backpack he had dropped in the exam room contained a loaded 9 mm handgun and loaded ammunition for the rifle, official reported.

Comeda’s neighbors in Palm Cay, a 55-and-older retirement community off Southwest State Road 200, told the Star-Banner a day after the incident that the suspect was in constant pain. One neighbor said he complained to the V.A. about his pain medication but he was ignored. They said he moved to the neighborhood in October.

Court records show his divorce was finalized just days before the shooting and he has been living in Marion County since 2012. His Facebook page states he was in the U.S. Army and had served in the Korean DMZ in the 1970s.

He complained on his Facebook page about the mistreatment of military veterans.

—Contact Austin L. Miller at 867-4118, austin.miller@starbanner.com or @almillerosb.