Twenty-two-year-old Taylon Nichelle Celestine allegedly opened fire on at least two drivers Monday claiming “God” told her to do so during the eclipse.
The New York Post reported that Celestine was staying in a hotel in Holmes County, Florida, and as she left Monday morning she allegedly told motel staff she planned to carry out a shooting. She allegedly told them she was instructed by “God” to do so.
She got on to Interstate 10 and allegedly began firing at drivers.
22-year-old Taylon Nichelle Celestine of Georgia checked out of a Florida hotel and told staff that she was going on a "God-directed shooting spree because of the solar eclipse," according to the Florida Highway Patrol. https://t.co/3RcFh9tQSp
— CBS4Local (@CBS4Local) April 9, 2024
ABC News noted, “[Celestine allegedly] entered the highway 115 miles from the Alabama border in the Florida Panhandle and headed west. Within 5 miles…she fired into a passing car several times, spraying auto glass and grazing the driver in the arm, the [Florida Highway Patrol] said in a statement.”
The driver grazed by a bullet and injured by shattered glass is expected to survive. The condition of a second driver, who was shot in the neck and rushed to a hospital, was not released.
Florida Highway Patrol officers stopped Celestine about 16 miles into her drive and found that she was armed with a rifle and a handgun. She was booked into the Holmes County jail and “charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and improper discharge of a firearm.”
Florida has a red flag law and a waiting period on gun purchases, both of which gun controls Democrats present as means of keeping Americans safe.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a pro-staffer for Pulsar Night Vision. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
