While he continues his recovery from a gunshot wound to the head, a Florida State University football player and Seminole High grad has filed a lawsuit against two apartment complexes where the accused shooters lived, accusing the properties of allowing them to stay there despite being aware of their past criminal activity.
On Aug. 31, Ethan Pritchard, 18, was driving his aunt and a 3-year-old back to their apartment in Havana, about 16 miles north of Tallahassee, when four assailants opened fire at his car in what authorities believe was a case of mistaken identity. Four people, including a 16-year-old, were charged in connection to the shooting, with three accused of attempted murder.
The lawsuit, initially filed Oct. 3 and amended Nov. 10 in Gadsden County where the shooting took place, accuses property managers at Riverside Apartments and Havana Heights Apartments of not evicting the shooters ahead of their encounter with Pritchard even though crimes were reported in their units. That includes a shooting at Havana Heights that took place six days before Pritchard was shot, which the lawsuit claims implicated the same alleged gunmen.
One of them was singled out by name: Germany Atkins, 22, who the lawsuit claims was accused of a range of crimes in the years before Pritchard was shot, including illegally owning guns and selling narcotics as well as reports of armed disturbances at his Riverside apartment unit.
“The assailants knew that there were no physical security deterrents at Defendants’ premises and that they could continue to have unfettered access to the premises to engage in criminal activity without fear of capture,” the lawsuit alleges, noting that surveillance cameras at Havana Heights were “inoperable.” Pritchard was expected to speak to reporters about the lawsuit alongside his attorneys in Orlando on Thursday afternoon.
Unlike his co-defendants, Atkins was arrested for violating his probation stemming from a 2023 case for illegally possessing a machine gun. His co-defendants, Caron Miller, 18, Jayden Bodison, 22, and the 16-year-old whom the Orlando Sentinel is not naming because he has not been charged as an adult, are charged with attempted murder.
Pritchard’s lawyers are currently seeking a default judgment against the property managers as they have not responded to the lawsuit, court records show. On Oct. 24, a lawyer for Havana Heights requested the court grant a 30-day extension.
Last month, Pritchard, recruited by FSU as a four-star linebacker who played at Seminole High School in Sanford, was released from Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and transferred to Brooks Rehabilitation Center in Jacksonville, where he was released last week. He now continues his recovery in Sanford.
“I remember everything,” Pritchard said in an interview with WESH. “I turned the corner and shots rang off. I put the car in reverse and just backed up and after that, I don’t remember what else happened.”
On Saturday, he returned to Doak Campbell Stadium in a wheelchair and was welcomed by fans ahead of the team’s victory over Virginia Tech. His father, Early Pritchard, told reporters his son is determined to return to training in January with the goal of playing once again next season.
As of Thursday, a GoFundMe page seeking money for Pritchard’s medical expenses raised $149,255.