Prosecutors have dropped the criminal case against a 17-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting another teen on New Year\u2019s Eve in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n
The boy said he shot 17-year-old Joshua Gipson in self-defense, according to a February no-file memo from the Broward State Attorney\u2019s Office. Prosecutors concluded that the evidence supported his claim.<\/p>\n
The boy and Gipson knew one another from TikTok, according to the memo. For a month prior to the shooting, they had \u201cexpressed distaste\u201d for one another online due to the neighborhoods they lived in.<\/p>\n
Then, on New Year\u2019s Eve, Gipson and the boy were both at Fort Lauderdale Beach with their own groups of friends, according to the memo. When the two groups crossed paths, Gipson yelled the boy\u2019s nickname and made a gesture indicating he had a gun.<\/p>\n
Later in the night, Gipson\u2019s group encountered one of the boy\u2019s friends near the bathroom by the beach while the boy was inside, according to the memo. They attacked the friend, then went across the street, found another of the boy\u2019s friends, and attacked him as well.<\/p>\n
The boy, meanwhile, emerged from the bathroom alone and saw the second attack take place across the street, according to the memo. As the boy descended the stairs, Gipson and his group spotted him and began to walk towards him. As Gipson and his friends surrounded the boy, the boy told Gipson to \u201cget back,\u201d but he continued to move towards him while reaching for his waistband. The boy pulled out his own gun and fired twice before running away, while Gipson\u2019s group fired after him.<\/p>\n
Video evidence later confirmed that Gipson was carrying a gun and showed him passing the gun to one of his friends after he was shot, according to the memo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evidence presented suggests that Joshua Gibson was armed, made threats towards [the boy], attacked two of his friends and within a minute, advanced on [him] while reaching into his waistband, despite warnings to stop,\u201d prosecutors wrote. \u201cUnder these circumstances, pursuant to \u00a7 782.02 of the Florida Statutes, [the boy] was justified in using deadly force.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecutors have dropped the criminal case against a 17-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting another teen on New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,112,28,249,251,250,114,266,115,109],"class_list":["post-305991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}