In a story that’s got “FLORIDA” emblazoned all over it, a 73-year-old Florida Man and his underage 15-year-old Florida Son have been arrested for firing more than a dozen rounds at a woman who was sitting in her SUV looking at her phone who they thought was a thief trying to steal a package from their porch because a neighbor dropped off a delivery of medications that had been mistakenly left at his door. Simple. Got it?
Let’s go over the elements of this story from NBC News: 73-year-old Gino Colonacosta of Coral Gables, Florida got a Ring doorbell notification that someone was on his front porch Saturday morning around 7:30 a.m. Watching the video footage, Colonacosta and his 15-year-old son–yes, our 73-year-old protagonist has a son too young to drive legally–jumped to the incorrect conclusion that they had caught a porch pirate on tape; in fact, the person caught by the camera was dropping off a medicine delivery that had been mistaken left at his door but was meant for the elder Colonacosta.
So in their early morning haze, Colonacosta and his underage son take guns to hunt down the suspected porch pirate who didn’t exist. They reportedly didn’t call the police, but decided to be Florida Men and take the law into their own hands.
Weapons in hand, Colonacosta spies a woman sitting in her running SUV scrolling through her phone. The woman–who, one must remember, was not the non-existent porch pirate nor the Good Samaritan neighbor, but just a woman in her car–glances up at her rearview mirror to see Gino standing behind her car pointing a gun at her. She puts the car in reverse to get out of the parking spot, backing into the car behind her in the process.
In the meantime, Gino starts opening fire on the woman who seconds before was simply looking at her phone in her car. His precocious little boy–who is actually an armed, hyped up 15-year-old walking around a community hunting down a non-existent porch pirate–arrives on scene and opens up on the vehicle with his own weapon.
Miraculously, the woman escaped without getting shot. However, one of the fusillade of bullets went through her baby’s car seat. The child was not in the car at the time. Both Colonacosta and his son are now facing attempted murder charges.