Stand Your Ground: Florida man cleared after fatally shooting SUV thief at car wash

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (WPLG) -- A South Florida man will not face charges for fatally shooting a car thief who took off with his boss’s Mercedes-Benz G-class SUV in Miami Beach, prosecutors announced in a closeout memo obtained Tuesday by Local 10 News.

According to the memo, Stephen Allen Lott, now 50, shot the suspect, Jose Antonio Reyes Bermudez, 58, on Dec. 18, 2018, outside the South Beach Finest Hand Car Wash at 1229 18th St.

Prosecutors said Lott had taken the luxury vehicle, which is owned by his employers, to the car wash when he saw Reyes Bermudez get into the driver’s seat of the vehicle and try to drive away.

Prosecutors said Lott ran outside of the car wash waiting area and shouted at the suspect to try to stop him.

As he stepped into the path of the Mercedes, which was traveling at a high rate of speed, he fired two shots at the driver-side door, striking Reyes Bermudez once in the head, the closeout memo stated.

The SUV crossed two lanes of traffic, struck a parked car, then crashed into the wall of an Office Depot. Police pulled out the suspect, who was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he later died.

Prosecutors cleared Lott of wrongdoing, saying in the closeout memo that he “had the legal right to stand his ground and use deadly force to protect himself from death or great bodily harm while Mr. Reyes Bermudez was committing and escaping from committing a forcible felony.”

The Miami Herald reports Reyes Bermudez did not have a gun or a knife.

In newly released surveillance video obtained by the Herald, Lott does not look like he’s about to get struck by the SUV. In fact, the SUV had already turned right, and the bullets entered the side of the SUV, one piercing the left side of Reyes Bermudez’s head.

But under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, Lott had no duty to retreat.

“I was in fear for my life and I shot,” Lott told a Miami Beach police officer.