Family and mates of a Florida man who was fatally shot at a canine park on Feb. 2 saythe gunman had made homophobic threats towards him for years.
The day earlier than he was killed, 52-year-old John Walter Lay despatched a video to his mates describing a person who was making threats to his life, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
A photograph of taking pictures sufferer John Walter Lay, 52, posted on Facebook.
In the video, which was obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, Lay stated the person had approached him that morning and screamed, “You’re gonna die!”
“So this morning while I’m walking — and we’re the only two here — he comes up to me and screams at me, ‘You’re going to die, you’re going to die,’ and I asked him to just leave me alone, and so far he has,” Lay stated within the video.
Lay’s household and mates say he was speaking about Gerald Declan Radford, 65, who instructed regulation enforcement he killed Lay in self-defense.
“I was attacked. I defended myself. End of story,” Radford instructed the Tampa Bay Times.
Radford was not arrested. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office instructed HuffPost in an e mail on Wednesday that there are at present no felony fees in opposition to him and that the investigation can be turned over to the state lawyer’s workplace when it’s concluded by the sheriff’s workplace.
A spokesperson for the native state lawyer’s workplace instructed HuffPost on Thursday that it has not but acquired a report on the investigation.
Lay’s family members say they don’t imagine Radford was appearing in self-defense. Albert Darlington, Lay’s pal and landlord, instructed the Tampa Bay Times that the sufferer had confronted homophobic threats from Radford, who goes by “Dec,” for greater than a yr.
“For over a year, Dec has done nothing but harass Walt. He screams and hollers and calls him a f****t every time he gets to the dog park,” Darlington instructed the newspaper. “He’ll sit there and he’ll say, ‘I’d like to punch him right in the f**king mouth’ … and it has gotten worse and worse and worse.”
Paul Gumpert, one other pal of Lay, instructed WTSP-TV in Tampa Bay that he’s additionally satisfied the taking pictures occurred as a result of the sufferer was a homosexual man.
Gumpert instructed WTSP that he had requested “a red flag investigation” from authorities and expressed his issues in regards to the public’s security.
In a separate interview with WTVT-TV in Tampa, Darlington stated he knew Radford properly and acquired a textual content message and picture from him the day of the taking pictures.
According to the the Fox affiliate, the picture confirmed Radford with obvious accidents to his face and textual content that stated, “I’m so sorry to tell you, Walt attacked me at the park and I had to defend myself.”
Darlington instructed the Tampa Bay Times the he acquired the picture earlier than discovering out his pal was killed. “My first impression was, this looks like you’re building an excuse for something that already happened. Little did I know that Walt was already dead.”
Darlington instructed WTVT that “I don’t buy that Walt attacked anybody” and stated he’d usually seen Lay attempt to keep away from Radford.
Sabrena Hughes, Lay’s sister, instructed WTVT she doesn’t imagine her brother was the aggressor, including that Radford had been harassing Lay for about two years and echoed accounts that her brother tried to keep away from him.
“One thing he was not was violent and he never, ever would have attacked anyone,” Hughes instructed WTVT of her brother.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Lay’s canine, Roxy, will probably be taken care of by a pal within the space so she will be able to proceed to go to her mates on the canine park.
