911 caller describes gunman in SWAT standoff with OPD

A woman on her way to work Wednesday morning sat in her truck at a traffic light near Lake Nona when she saw something unusual.

A man got out of his Nissan Sentra. He pointed a handgun into the air and shot.

“I just turned around and booked it down the street,” the woman told a 911 dispatcher in a phone call released by Orlando Police on Thursday.

The woman can be heard warning pedestrians about the gunman about 7:50 a.m. She pulled over onto another stretch of road, where she could see the gunman from a distance.

The gunman kept getting in and out of the car and shooting into the air while the light signals changed, the caller said. Others drove around him, she said. He seemed to be talking to himself, she said.

More 911 calls were detailed in a police report.

A landscaper who approached Carellas said he “used his lawnmower for protection” when Carellas pointed the gun at him, the report states.

Minutes later, the woman who first called 911 saw police surrounding the man, who was since identified as 22-year-old Stephanos Carellas.

He aimed the gun at an officer, according to the report. It was the beginning of an hours-long standoff. Access points to several streets and an apartment complex were shut down.

Carellas barricaded himself in his Sentra. A SWAT team fired multiple rounds of tear gas.

Carellas finally got out of the car, with the gun in his hand. Officers hit him with a non-lethal ammunition meant to stun suspects.

Carellas was taken into custody shortly before 10 a.m., facing charges of aggravated assault with a firearm against a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault with a firearm, discharging a firearm in public and resisting an officer without violence. Police said Carellas seemed to be hallucinating.

Police said there were no injuries.