BS BULLETIN:
- Broward County prosecutors say Melissa Payne will not be charged in the June 30 fatal shooting of Bart DiGuglielmo in a North Lauderdale Walmart parking lot.
- Prosecutors concluded Florida’s Stand Your Ground law protected Payne because video showed DiGuglielmo continuing to approach as she backed away and warned him not to come closer.
- DiGuglielmo’s family disputes the self-defense finding and says the use of deadly force was unreasonable.
A fight over a Walmart parking space ended with one man dead — and prosecutors say the woman who shot him will not face criminal charges.
The Broward County State Attorney’s Office announced Thursday that Melissa Payne will not be prosecuted in the June 30 shooting death of 62-year-old Bart DiGuglielmo outside a Walmart in North Lauderdale, Florida.
The confrontation began over a parking space.
According to prosecutors, Payne was with her niece and an infant when she encountered DiGuglielmo in the lot.
Witnesses and video reviewed by prosecutors showed the argument escalating after DiGuglielmo allegedly threatened to damage Payne’s vehicle. He initially drove away, then parked nearby and returned.
The prosecutor’s memo described him as visibly angry and shaking.
Payne got out of her vehicle holding a phone in one hand and a gun in the other.
“If you keep coming up to me, I’m going to f—ing shoot you!” she warned, according to the memo.
Video showed Payne backing away while DiGuglielmo continued toward her.
At one point, prosecutors said he appeared to gesture with his keys as if he might damage the vehicle. He then approached again.
Payne fired once, striking him in the abdomen.
DiGuglielmo later died.
Assistant State Attorney Stephen Zaccor opened his review with a blunt summary: “A dispute over a parking space. In a Walmart parking lot. The facts … as tragic as they are absurd.”
Under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, a person who is lawfully present has no duty to retreat before using force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm.
Prosecutors concluded the state could not overcome Payne’s claim of reasonable fear by clear and convincing evidence.
The memo was careful not to say Payne was unquestionably “right.”
“The video does not demonstrate that MP was in the right,” prosecutors wrote, using Payne’s initials.
But they concluded it did not disprove her self-defense claim either.
DiGuglielmo’s family strongly disagrees.
Family attorney Melissa Rodriguez has said the shooting was not justified and that deadly force was unreasonable under the circumstances.
DiGuglielmo was a retired Army staff sergeant, a Desert Storm veteran, a father and grandfather, and had worked as a trauma nurse.
Now a parking-lot argument that should have ended with somebody walking away has instead become a fatal case study in Florida’s self-defense law.
DBS WIRE SOURCES
- New York Post — No charges in Walmart parking-lot shooting
- Local 10 — Prosecutors decline charges
- ABC News — Stand Your Ground decision
- NBC 6 South Florida — Family disputes self-defense finding
- CBS Miami — Broward prosecutors explain decision
