Officials said witnesses reported seeing a man swimming in a lake near alligators before police arrived on scene.

Timothy Schulz, a 42-year-old man in Florida with a history of meth-related arrests, was fatally shot by the police after surviving a swim in a lake full of alligators. Officers opened fire on him after he assaulted them with a pair of garden shears and attempted to steal a firearm from the running police car.

The fact that he was bitten by an alligator, significantly, and still continued his rampage, is shocking,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.