Last Updated: 2:37 p.m.
Tyree Smith, 22, and a 17-year-old juvenile injured in a shooting Sunday night at Beach Village Apartments in Palm Coast both claim Stand Your Ground, according to Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly. The shooting stemmed from an earlier confrontation between Smith and his girlfriend.
Both the man and the juvenile suffered non-life-threatening wounds in the shooting. Smith was shot in the upper body and arm, the 17-year-old was shot in the leg. Both were taken to the hospital. The 22-year-old was admitted at Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach. The 17-year-old was released. Two firearms were recovered, the sheriff said. It is not yet clear whether both firearms were discharged, or whether the wounds resulted from a single gun.
“Deputies were dispatched to a 911 call indicating two people had been shot,” Staly said. “We found one of the individuals in the apartment and the second one at the 7-Eleven in front of the apartments, and that’s why there were two separate crime scenes.”
Beach Village Apartments is a complex at the eastern edge of Palm Coast on State Road 100, near the municipal line with Flagler Beach. “There was a domestic dispute between a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and a third individual tried to intervene,” the sheriff said. The boyfriend is the 22-year-old. “A struggle ensued over a gun, and the gun was discharged.” A sheriff’s release specified that according to the woman’s statements, she was struck and fell during the confrontation, causing her to hit her head. She then began screaming for help.
The woman “reported that a juvenile family member entered the room with a firearm and told Smith to stop,” the release states. “Smith allegedly became aggressive toward the juvenile, who then fired a shot that struck Smith. According to the statements, a struggle over the firearm followed in the hallway. During that struggle, an additional shot was fired, striking the juvenile in the leg. Smith then fled from the apartment and was found at the nearby convenience store.”
No one witnessed the shooting, other than the two involved. The woman was in a different part of the apartment when it happened. There are indications, Staly said, that the confrontation between the couple had gotten physical before the younger man got involved.
Stand Your Ground is the self-defense doctrine developed in Florida in 2005 that legally protects a person shooting at or using force against another in self-defense, regardless of the location. The person exercising the right of self-defense is not required to retreat, seek cover or de-escalate in a situation where the person feels threatened. It is unusual–and in Flagler County, possibly unprecedented–that both individuals involved in a confrontation invoke Stand Your Ground.
“We as a Sheriff’s Office would not make a determination as to whether it is a Stand Your Ground,” the sheriff said. “That would depend on the facts of the case and up to the State Attorney and up to a grand jury if that’s necessary.” The role of the Sheriff’s Office–its deputies and detectives–is to obtain any evidence that would support the incident’s facts, “and be able to present that case to the State Attorney’s Office. You’d especially do that if it wasn’t clear cut.”
“Charges could be pending based on the completion of the investigation,” Staly said. “We’re looking at all aspects of this incident during this investigation for everyone involved” including, for example, the legality of a 17-year-old having a gun.
The State Attorney’s Office may decline to file charges. If charges are filed against one or both individuals, each would have the right to a Stand Your Ground hearing in court. Those hearings are simultaneously part of the case and separate from it, in that they are intended to determine whether the case should go forward or not.
At a Stand Your Ground hearing, and based on a 2017 change in Florida law, the burden is on the prosecution–on the State Attorney’s Office–to prove that Stand Your Ground does not apply. (Before 2017, the burden was on the defendant to prove that the use of force was reasonable.) If prosecutors meet that burden, the case goes forward, and Stand Your Ground is invalidated. If Stand Your Ground prevails, the charges are immediately dropped and the case is over.
The Sheriff’s Office’s forensics investigation will be key.
Staly said the shooting could have posed a danger to others in the apartment complex, but in this case caused no harm beyond the apartment.
“However, I would say any time a gun is fired inside an apartment with adjoining apartments, there’s always a possibility a bullet can go into a wall and to another apartment,” the sheriff said. “So it’s always very dangerous for a firearm to be fired inside a structure, but at this time in this particular case we have no other indication of any apartment being involved.”
The shooting at Beach Village Apartments capped an unusually busy and bloody few days for the Sheriff’s Office and Flagler County, starting with the murder-suicide involving an elderly couple in Palm Coast’s P-Section either on Nov. 12 or 13, and a third shooting that did not result in injuries, but did result in an arrest, over the weekend.
“You never know what goes on behind closed doors, and unfortunately we’re a microcosm of America,” Staly said. “This has been a very violent weekend in Palm Coast, which is extremely rare. We’re ranked as one of the safest communities in America for violent crime. We don’t like any violence, but this has been an unusual weekend and kept us very busy.”
Leave a Reply