Tampa’s ABC affiliate reports:
A Hillsborough County jury found Gerald Declan Radford not guilty for the shooting of a gay man at a Tampa dog park last year. Radford was charged with second-degree murder for the death of a gay man at a Tampa dog park in 2024.
According to prosecutors, Radford fatally shot Walt Lay last February after witnesses said Radford taunted Lay for months because he was gay.
Radford claimed he shot Lay in self-defense after Lay attacked him, but a judge denied Radford’s motion to have the case dismissed following a stand-your-ground hearing.
The Tampa Bay Times reports:
Friends and acquaintances who knew both men said they initially got along as they hung out at the park. But they disagreed about politics and issues like COVID-19, vaccines and mask mandates. Radford started using homophobic slurs toward Lay, who acquaintances said eventually started avoiding Radford by hanging out in another part of the park.
One witness testified that one week before the killing, Radford, realizing that Lay had arrived at the park, said, “Here comes that fucking faggot, I want to kill him.”
Another witness, who ran into Radford at the park the day before the shooting, testified that Radford said of Lay, “I’m going to hit that guy, I’m going to break his jaw.” The witness testified that Radford said he liked to walk up to Lay quickly “to try and scare him,” something other witnesses had seen him do in the past.
Tampa’s Fox affiliate reports:
Prosecuting attorney Justin Diaz used a baseball analogy when mentioning a video Lay recorded the day before the shooting, saying Radford threatened to kill him. “Gerald Radford is standing at the batter’s box in the World Series, and he’s calling his shot,” Diaz said. “Twenty-four hours before Mr. Lay is dead, Gerald Radford is telling him ‘you’re going to die.'”
The defense acknowledged Radford’s use of hateful language while maintaining his claim of self-defense. “No matter how offensive those words in 2024 and 2025 are, that in and of it itself, somebody who uses hateful terminology or is a self-described asshole does not make them a criminal. It does not make them a murderer,” defense attorney Matthew Futch said.
Watch the video reports.
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