A dispute over a handicapped parking space turned deadly when a disabled senior reached for his gun and bear spray at a popular fishing spot in Sarasota, Florida.
Jonathan Lee Arias had driven down from Orlando for a weekend getaway with his wife and a friend. But moments after pulling into the parking lot of Hart’s Landing fishing pier on Aug. 3, he was confronted by 66-year-old Richard Minor.
Minor, who reportedly lived out of his car, was parked in the handicapped spot next to Arias and is a left-leg amputee. After he challenged Arias on whether he was genuinely handicapped, an argument broke out, according to an arrest affidavit via Law & Crime.
Before any shots were fired, witnesses claim Minor continued to harass Arias about the handicapped spot “from a distance, which made Arias upset,” per the affidavit.
The fisherman decided to cut bait on his weekend trip, pack up his gear, and leave the area with his wife and friend. Perhaps if he had kept going, he would be alive today.
Just as the group was leaving the parking lot, Minor yelled at them for driving in the wrong direction, per Fox13. That’s when Arias stopped and exited his car to confront the agitated man from the passenger side door. Minor was sitting in the driver’s seat.
“What’s your problem?” the victim asked, to which Minor responded, “I’ll show you my problem,” according to the affidavit.
When Arias reportedly asked if Minor had “mental issues,” Minor responded, “Your day is coming.”
He then pulled out a container of bear spray and attempted to douse Arias, who moved away from the open passenger side window and went to the other side of the car, confronting Minor at the driver’s side window.
Witnesses told police that Minor fired off several shots that struck Arias. After seeing the altercation unfold, Arias’ wife and friend got out of their truck and raced over to help, but Minor turned the gun on them but didn’t shoot, according to the police. He allegedly had his finger on the trigger when he said to the wife, “Get out of my face, b****.”
When police arrived at the scene, Arias was still breathing, but he succumbed to his injuries at a local hospital.
Minor was apprehended while still sitting in his car, his hands on the steering wheel, and the murder weapon placed on his right leg. He allegedly admitted to police that he had been drinking alcohol in his car since he arrived that morning at 11:30 a.m., three hours earlier, and talked about how people illegally park in spaces designated for the disabled. He claimed that Arias said, “I’ll f*** you up,” two separate times during the confrontation, per the affidavit.
Minor has been charged with second-degree murder, and even though Arias was unarmed, the outcome of the case is anyone’s guess.
In July 2018, a Florida sheriff’s department refused to charge a white man in a strangely similar case to Arias’.
Michael Drejka had a “pet peeve” about people parking in handicapped spaces even though he wasn’t disabled himself. After confronting the girlfriend of Markeis McGlockton over a handicapped spot as she sat in her car with two of her children while McGlockton was inside a Clearwater convenience store, Drejka gunned down the unarmed 28-year-old Black man. Drejka pushed McGlockton’s girlfriend to the ground, and after emerging to find the man arguing with his girlfriend, McGlockton confronted him.
Drejka was not charged by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department, which cited the state’s stand-your-ground law in saying the shooting was justified.
Florida’s controversial stand-your-ground law offers legal protections to people who say they acted in self-defense or out of fear for their safety. Sometimes called the “shoot first” law, it is an additional element of a self-defense claim that provides no duty retreat from a situation before using deadly force, and it applies even if the defender is not home or in the workplace. In states like Florida a successful stand your ground claim immunizes a potential defendant from prosecution.
The State Attorney’s Office conducted its own investigation and charged Drejka with manslaughter about a month after the shooting. He was convicted in 2019 and is now serving a 20-year sentence in prison. Since Florida first introduced the law, stand-your-ground statutes have proliferated across the U.S. and have been linked to an 8 percent to 11 percent increase in homicide rates.
