Stuart Prescott, 48, of Suwannee Florida shot and killed Tyler Snellgrove, 18, also of Suwannee. The shooting occurred on 13 September, 2014. Deputies interviewed witnesses and obtained a warrant to search Prescott’s house. Prescott was arrested and placed in Jail on the 14th or 15th of September, 2014. He was charged with 1st degree murder.
The only news at the time stated that Prescott come out onto the porch when he had a confrontation with Snellgrove. He went back inside, got a shotgun, came out and shot the younger man. From wcjb.com:
Sonja Reed says her grandson has known Prescott since he was a little boy.
She believes that Prescott felt her grandson was a threat competitively to him.
Prescott is currently in the Dixie County jail on one count of first degree murder.
As is often the case, the events appear to have been a bit more complicated. Now, nearly two years later, Prescott has been released, and all charges have been dropped, by order of a judge. How does a case like this go on for nearly two years, only to have a judge order the charges dropped? From wcjb.com:
Just days before Snellgrove has robbed, beaten and threatened Prescott life.
Prescott claims he was fearful for his life and after confrontation he shot Snellgrove.
Under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law a judge ruled the shooting was justified and all charges were dropped.
The grandmother of the man who was killed, was given space on the news to speculate that her grandson was killed for romantic reasons. Now we find that he had robbed and beaten Prescott only a few days previously.
Prescott will never get his two years of life in jail back. It will be very difficult for him to recover any reputation.
In addition, The FBI UCR tracks arrests, not final court outcomes.The UCR specifically instructs the police doing the reporting not to rely on court outcomes, but to use only the very restrictive FBI definition of justified homicide.
The FBI UCR counts this as a murder, not a justified homicide. The arrest is likely to follow him every time he is required to have a background check. They can be hard to remove from the system. He has been punished by process.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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