Florida storage worker offers not to report a mother and daughter for sleeping inside, but police say she was shot anyway

A routine morning check at a Florida storage facility ended with an employee shot in the face, and investigators say the dispute started over a unit being used as a place to sleep. Kandice Jo Pierce, 40, has been charged with attempted murder in connection with the shooting in Palm Bay, according to Law&Crime.

The shooting happened around 10 a.m. Saturday at a storage facility on Babcock Street, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said. Investigators say the employee was doing her morning rounds when she spotted two people who appeared to be living inside one of the units. The worker told them they were not allowed to live or sleep there, as doing so violated the lease agreement.

Pierce told the employee she was the one who rented the unit and that they should be allowed to stay, investigators said. The employee then offered not to report the pair to management if they left, and she began to walk away. According to deputies, the suspect called her back, and the worker heard a loud bang before feeling pain in her face.

Deputies say the other person in the storage unit was the suspect’s 16-year-old daughter

After the shot, the employee ran and hid under a desk, where she called 911 for help. Deputies say she had a small entry wound below her eye, and the bullet remained lodged in her face. Investigators later found two spent shell casings near the storage unit, and Pierce was identified as the suspect, as her name was on the lease.

A detective from a nearby agency who had tried to help Pierce with housing about a month earlier told investigators that the other person in the unit was her 16-year-old daughter. Deputies found the teen at a nearby gas station. According to investigators, the girl said her mother was upset about being kicked out of the storage unit, so she fired at the employee twice.

Early reports described the incident as a dispute between a customer and an employee over a storage unit, and authorities said there did not appear to be any ongoing threat to the community. By that evening, deputies had named Pierce as the shooter and were serving a warrant for attempted first-degree murder.

The 40-year-old was not with her daughter when deputies tracked the teen down. However, she was later found outside a business on Palm Bay Road and taken into custody without incident. Authorities indicated the employee’s injury did not appear to be life-threatening, and Pierce was also wanted in an unrelated arson case, the outlet reported.

The shooting adds to a string of cases in which workers were attacked while simply doing their jobs, as the night masked teens swarmed a McDonald’s employee showed. However, in the Palm Bay case, investigators say the storage employee had already offered the pair a way out and was walking away when she was called back.

Pierce remains in the Brevard County Jail without bond as the case moves forward. Her next court date is set for Nov. 10, when the attempted murder charge is expected to come before a judge again. Like anyone charged with a crime, the Palm Bay woman is presumed innocent unless she is proven guilty in court.

More details about what happened inside the storage unit could come out at the November hearing, and prosecutors may still amend the charges as the investigation continues.