Exercising the Right
“I Was in Fear for My Life”
The Miami Herald reported on February 9 about a self-defense shooting that showed the benefits of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. The case involved a career criminal who tried to steal an SUV, but was shot when he drove the stolen vehicle toward a customer.
The shooting was caught on surveillance footage, and it showed the suspect, 58-year-old Jose Antonio Reyes Bermudez, attempting to drive away with a Mercedes SUV that had been just cleaned. Bermudez pretended to be the owner of the vehicle and took the keys from a car wash employee. The car wash manager recognized that Bermudez was not the man who brought the car in, and walked up to the vehicle and told Bermudez to get out of the car.
It was at that moment that Bermudez started the vehicle and tried to drive it from the car wash. Bermudez narrowly missed the manager with his car and turned toward the lot exit, but the man who had brought the Mercedes in for a cleaning, Stephen Allen Lott, stood near the exit. As Bermudez drove in Lott’s direction, Lott quickly pulled out a loaded pistol and fired two shots at the vehicle.
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