Man dies after he and friend fight over dogs, Florida cops say. Now friend is charged
A man is accused of manslaughter following a fight with a longtime friend that turned physical in Florida, the sheriff’s office said.
In May, a group of friends were sitting in chairs in the driveway of a home in a Weeki Wachee neighborhood when another friend of theirs came walking down the street with his dog, the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office said in an Aug. 15 news release.
One of the friends also had his dog with him, and the friend walked up to the group, who had been friends for many years, to chat, deputies said.
The two dogs started to interact with one another, causing the man who walked up to the group to “nudge” the other dog away with his foot, according to the release.
He did this multiple times before the friend asked him to stop nudging his dog, deputies said.
The man already standing instead nudged the dog again, and then the other man got up and the two started to physically fight, according to the sheriff’s office.
The fight lasted a few minutes before the two stopped, deputies said, and the resident of the home asked the man who had walked up to leave the property.
The man left back toward his house, which was nearby, according to the release.
Then, the friend who was still in the driveway started experiencing “symptoms of a cardiac event” and collapsed, deputies said.
Deputies and paramedics responded to the house and started life-saving measures, but the man later died at a hospital, according to the release.
His death remained under investigation while an autopsy was performed, deputies said.
In July, the sheriff’s office received the results of that autopsy, according to the release, and the county medical examiner ruled the cause of death as “homicide.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, homicide charges can be filed in cases of cardiac death if officials determined it was caused by severe emotional stress following a criminal act.
Detectives met with the State Attorney’s Office in July to review the case, and an arrest warrant was written for the friend who officials said fought with the man before his medical event.
On Aug. 14, the friend was charged with one count of manslaughter and was taken into custody at the Hernando County Detention Center.
Weeki Wachee is about 50 miles north of Tampa.
