PJ Nilaja Patterson tangled with the wrong species in the wrong state.
After tormenting a three-foot iguana to death, Patterson accepted a plea deal in 2021 that put him in the Palm Beach County Jail for nine months. But only after a judge rejected his “stand your ground” self-defense claim.
A human would have been a safer victim. In Florida, gunmen regularly escape criminal charges, even in outrageous circumstances, after evoking the state’s infamous statute.
Just last week, the Pinellas County Sheriff conceded that a Dunedin homeowner would face no criminal charges despite firing 30 rounds from an AR-15 after mistaking his pool maintenance man for a burglar. He kept shooting even while his wife and a 911 operator begged him to cease fire.
Rolando Otero / Sun Sentinel
South Florida Sun Sentinel columnist Fred Grimm. (Rolando Otero, South Florida Sun Sentinel)Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told reporters that because the shooter claimed to be in fear for his life, he was shielded from criminal charges under the stand your ground statute. The utter recklessness of his gunplay didn’t matter. Not in Florida. Gualtieri told the Tampa Bay Times the Dunedin blastathon was “lawful but awful,” which could be the state motto.
The iguana slayer had been bitten on the arm by the reptile during their encounter on Lake Worth Beach, but his untoward over-reaction, swinging the reptile about by its tail and banging its head on the asphalt, negated his self-defense claim.
He was charged with animal cruelty, because torturing even an ugly, unloved, invasive nuisance has consequences in Florida. Still, his crime would seem less threatening to society than a gunman strafing his backyard in a residential neighborhood with an assault weapon while trying to obliterate the pool boy. (Who suffered superficial cuts from flying debris but no bullet wounds.)
Florida extends special leniency to gunslingers. Lizard slingers, not so much.
The 2005 stand your ground statute eliminated the longtime self-defense requirement to retreat, if practical, before resorting to deadly force. Since its passage, the words “I was afraid for my life” have become the first utterance of a street-smart shooter.
After Lawarren Omeal Meadows shot and killed a 21-year-old college student in Miami Beach in March, he told police that “someone pulled a gun on him, forcing him to defend himself.”
Thanks to that magic phrase, Meadows, so far, has not been charged. The Miami Herald reported that “police were grappling with a self-defense claim under Florida’s stand your ground law.”
When Jonathan Clemente gunned down unarmed Frankie Cordero in south Miami-Dade in 2021, the shooter, of course, claimed he had feared for his life. Clemente was not charged. (This fine citizen has since been arrested for attempted murder in an unrelated case.)
Homicide charges were dropped against Eduardo Macias, who killed a motorist outside a Hialeah service station in 2021 during a confrontation Macias initiated because his victim had been “staring at me.”
But Macias claimed that the victim had “reached inside his waistband.” Once again, prosecutors were flummoxed by stand your ground.
PJ Nilaja Patterson did nine months for killing an iguana. Curtis Reeves, a retired Tampa police officer, escaped prison altogether after gunning down a moviegoer in a Pasco County cineplex who had tossed a bag of popcorn at him. “I can’t believe he shot me,” said the dying victim.
But Reeves claimed he had been afraid. His second-degree murder trial last year ended with a not-guilty verdict.
A harrowing, miles-long rolling shootout along Miami’s Old Cutler Road involving two carloads of rival gangbangers in 2009 ended with one passenger dead and the shooter in custody. But Stand Your Ground forced prosecutors to dismiss homicide charges.
Scores of similar shootings have gone unpunished, thanks to stand your ground, Florida’s great gift to gunmen. Killers who gun down rival gang members or pistoleros involved in road rage shootouts simply claim they had feared for their lives.
George Zimmerman’s shocking acquittal for the 2012 Trayvon Martin killing in Sanford was due, in part, to stand your ground.
A new firearm law taking effect Saturday, allows Floridians to carry concealed weapons without the bother of a permit. Common sense would lead you to conclude that so many more hotheads packing heat will have deadly consequences.
If you prefer scientific evidence, a study published last year in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that relaxing concealed-carry regulations in 34 states led to a 9.5% increase in firearm assaults.
Unlicensed concealed carry in Florida means more spontaneous shootouts, more mindless killings and more dubious stand your ground acquittals.
The violence-prone should be mindful of their victims, of course. In this state, pummeling an iguana risks more legal jeopardy than blasting away at the pool boy.
Unless the lizard reaches for his waistband.
Fred Grimm, a longtime resident of Fort Lauderdale, has worked as a journalist in South Florida since 1976. Reach him by email at or on Twitter: @grimm_fred.
