The girlfriend of a man who was shot and killed during a heated row over a handicapped parking space in Florida last week has called for justice in the father’s death in a new interview.
Markeis McGlockton, 28, was shot in front of his girlfriend Britany Jacobs and the couple’s three young children on Thursday afternoon after gunman Michael Drejka picked a fight with the mother for parking in a handicap spot without tags.
Jacobs described how the argument over proper parking etiquette took a deadly turn in an emotional interview with Good Morning America on Monday.
‘He wanted somebody to be angry at. He just wanted someone to fight him,’ Jacobs said of the white man who shot her black boyfriend.
Britany Jacobs, whose boyfriend was shot and killed during an argument over a parking space in Florida, appeared on Good Morning America Monday and called for justice
Markeis McGlockton, 28, was shot and killed after shoving a man to the ground in the dispute outside a convenience store in Clearwater, Florida, on Thursday afternoon
Jacobs and the couple’s three young children, two shown above, witnessed the fatal shooting
Surveillance footage from the convenience store shows the deadly parking lot altercation
McGlockton and the couple’s five-year-old son were inside the convenience store when Drejka approached Jacobs, who was sitting in the car with her infant and three-year-old children.
‘He was picking a fight. I’m just sitting, waiting for my family to come back to the car,’ she said.
The mother said she started feeling ‘scared’ as the argument quickly escalated.
‘By this time a witness pulls up and everybody hears us going back and forth with one another. [The witness] let the owner know that there was somebody out there messing with a woman in a car,’ she said.
‘My man hears what’s going on, sees the guy yelling at me and I’m sitting in the car. My man is defending me and his children, so he pushes him down.’
‘The guy is on the ground and he pulls the gun out. My dude steps back ’cause my dude is fearing for his life – all of us were.’
Within seconds of pulling the gun, Drejka fired a shot directly into McGlockton’s chest.
‘Everybody is panicking, my son is screaming, but it was too late,’ she said. ‘It’s hard for a four- or five-year-old to witness what he saw. It’s really tough for him.’
Jacobs broke down in tears describing the horror of having her son witness his father’s death
Jacobs is pictured with the 28-year-old pronounced dead at a hospital after the shooting
McGlockton stumbled back into the store and fought for his life for the next 30 minutes, but was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
‘He was a good man and all he was trying to do was protect his family,’ Jacobs said.
‘I just want justice. I need something to be done because this is not right.’
Drejka has been cleared by police because of Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law, which authorizes deadly force in self-defense with no duty to retreat from an attacker.
The shooting ‘is within the bookends of stand your ground and within the bookends of force being justified,’ Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said at a press conference Friday.
‘No matter how you slice it or dice it that was a violent push to the ground.
‘[Drejka] told deputies that he had to shoot to defend himself. Those are the facts and that’s the law. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I don’t make that call.’
Drejka remained on the scene until police arrived and was confirmed to have a concealed carry license.
The owner of the Circle-A Food Store WFTS that Drejka had assaulted customers in the store’s parking lot before.
A man who frequents the store, Rich Kelly, claimed Drejka picked a fight with him over a parking spot about a month ago, calling him racial slurs and threatening to kill him.
Drejka is seen gesturing to the empty spaces as he scolds Jacobs for parking in a handicapped spot without the proper tags
McGlockton turns and stumbles back inside the store as Drejka trains the gun at him
The owner of the convenience store, pictured, said Drejka has harassed customers in the parking lot before