- January 16, 2025
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The shooter killed by a Volusia County Sheriff's Office sniper in Ormond-by-the-Sea fired more than 700 rounds at neighboring condo units and deputies, Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said on social media Thursday, Dec. 5.
"Thank God not a single one of them struck an innocent person, and thank God for the safety of my deputies," the sheriff wrote on his Facebook page.
On Thanksgiving morning, the shooter, identified as 56-year-old Joseph DiFusco, fired multiple rounds from inside his Kingston Shores Condominiums unit at 5500 Ocean Shore Blvd. in Ormond-by-the-Sea. At the time of the incident, deputies believed he had fired over 200 rounds.
DiFusco was a military veteran, a convicted felon out of his home state of Connecticut and the "subject of a pending ex parte order in Volusia County due to a series of extreme mental health episodes that included delusions, hallucinations, manic behavior, and threats to his wife’s and daughter’s lives," VSO previously reported.
VSO recovered two Thompson submachine guns, a .45 caliber handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun from inside DiFusco’s condominium.
Chitwood credited "great training and great equipment" in his deputies' response to the incident, in which no citizen or deputy was injured. Critics, the sheriff said, say that equipment like ballistic shields, drones and the department's armored vehicles make VSO look "militarized."
"When a shooter with a Tommy gun is firing 700 rounds, or when he's barricaded in his house and setting it on fire like we saw last year in Deltona, I want my Volusia Sheriff's Office deputies protected by the best equipment we can give them," Chitwood said.
