CLEARWATER, Fla. _ Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced Friday that his agency will not arrest a man deputies say fatally shot another man during an argument over a handicap parking space.
The incident falls under Florida's self-defense law known as "stand your ground," the sheriff said during a news conference. The law protects from arrest those in fear of their lives who use force to defend themselves.
The shooting "is within the bookends of stand your ground and within the bookends of force being justified," the sheriff said, later adding, "I'm not saying I agree with it, but I don't make that call."
The agency will forward the case to the State Attorney's Office to make a final decision, Gualtieri said.
The decision sprouts from a fight in a convenience store parking lot Thursday afternoon between Michael Drejka, 47, and Markeis McGlockton, 28. According to deputies, Drejka confronted McGlockton's girlfriend, Britany Jacobs, about parking in a handicap space without a permit.
McGlockton went up to Drejka and "slammed him to the ground," the sheriff said. Drejka, seconds later while still on the ground, pulled out his gun and shot McGlockton in the chest. The father of three was pronounced dead soon after.
On Friday before the sheriff's announcement, Jacobs seemed to have a different opinion.
"It's a wrongful death. It's messed up. Markeis is a good man. ... He was just protecting us, you know?" Jacobs, 25, said Friday. "And it hurts so bad."
She broke down in tears.
McGlockton was her high school sweetheart, she said. The pair had been together since 2009, when she met him at a friend's house while attending Dunedin High.
They stopped at the Circle A food store at 1201 Sunset Point Road on the way home from picking Jacobs up from her job as a certified nursing assistant to grab chips and drinks. Jacobs parked in the handicap spot, she said, because the parking lot was busy.
The couple's 4-month-old and 3-year-old were in the car. Their 5-year-old, name after McGlockton, was in the store. After the shooting, when his father walked in and collapsed, the boy witnessed his mother applying pressure to the wound with a T-shirt, Jacobs said.
"He's not too good," Jacobs said. "It comes and goes, but he knows he (his father) is dead."
Drejka could not immediately be reached for comment.
Jacobs said she's in the process of hiring a lawyer to see what her options are. She said she wants justice, emphasizing that Drejka went up to her.
"He's getting out like he's a police officer or something, and he's approaching me," she said. "I minded my own business ... I didn't do anything wrong."
