April 23 (UPI) — Police in Florida have justified not filing charges against a man who shot at a delivery car because he “perceived” a threat.
Waldes Thomas Jr. and his girlfriend Diamond Harley D’arville, both teenagers, were searching for a home in Davie to make an Instacart delivery on the night of April 15, NBC News reported.
The teens stopped their Honda Civic at the wrong address, a home next to where the delivery was intended, as they called the customer’s wife for navigation help.
Antonio Caccavale, 43, approached the car as it was in front of his home after he allegedly first sent his 12-year-old son outside to tell the teens to get off the property.
D’arville told WTVJ South Florida that Caccavale approached backed his truck up behind their car as they were about to leave the property and asked who they were.
She said the teens explained they were with Instacart attempting to make a delivery when they then saw Caccavale retrieve a gun from his truck.
“I had seen him pull out a gun and that’s when I said, ‘We got to go, we got to go,'” D’arville told the station. “I was scared, I’m not going to lie.”
Police were reportedly unclear on the sequence of events. There is no video of the incident so the police reportedly relied on the accounts of those involved, which were inconsistent with each other.
Generally, at some point, the teens hastily drove away — running over Caccavale’s foot in the process while Caccavale fired three shots from his Smith & Wesson handgun at the vehicle.
The teenagers were not injured but both were visibly shaken when they spoke with police following the incident, according to Insider.
Detective Patrick Di Cintio of the Davie Police Department said the department will not charge either party.
“Each party appear justified in their actions based on the circumstances they perceived,” he wrote in a police department obtained by NBC News.
Caccavaletold police that he shot at the vehicle after it ran over his foot and he was fired out of fear for “his and his children’s safety.”
Harold Pryor, state attorney for Broward County, has reportedly called for a review of the incident and the process the police department went through to determine it will not file charges.