POMPANO BEACH, Fla. – A confrontation over parking escalated into a shooting at a Pompano Beach mobile home park over the weekend, according to court documents made public on Wednesday.
John Thomas Thibault, a resident of the Golf View Estates 55-and-up community, is accused of instigating it all after becoming mad that his neighbor, the victim, “parked on the wrong side of the road,” a Broward Sheriff’s Office arrest report states.
Recommended Videos
Deputies responded to the scene, in the 3400 block of Tee Terrace, just after 3:30 Sunday afternoon.
According to the BSO report, the victim told deputies from his hospital bed at Broward Health North that he was dropping off two neighbors at their home. He and his wife had just spent the day at the beach with them, he said.
That’s when Thibault, 60, pulled up in a golf cart. The victim, deputies said, had parked on the wrong side of the road and Thibault, whom the man said he had never met, started to “yell obscenities” at the couple about it.
The report states the man told Thibault to leave. Instead, he followed the victim home, deputies said, and banged on the victim’s back driver’s side door with his fist after he parked in his driveway.
The man told detectives that after “he and his wife told Thibault to leave the property,” Thibault “attempted to lunge” at him, the report states.
In self-defense, “(redacted) grabbed a flashlight out of the driver’s side door and struck Thibault with it,” BSO Detective Jennifer Petrofsky wrote.
The victim’s wife said Thibault kicked her husband in the groin at one point during the altercation.
Thibault then yelled, “I’m gonna shoot you,” unholstered a small black gun and pointed it at the man and his wife, deputies said.
That led the victim’s wife to pepper-spray Thibault, but it appeared to have no effect, the report states. Deputies said Thibault then pointed the gun at the man’s stomach and then shot him in the leg.
According to the report, Thibault would later tell deputies, “I would have kept shooting, but my gun jammed.”
One of the pair then continued to strike Thibault with the flashlight until he left, deputies said.
A witness told detectives that Thibault is known to be armed and “very confrontational” with neighbors, the report states.
Petrofsky wrote that Thibault, speaking to deputies, claimed he “shot the man in self-defense” after being beat with the flashlight and maced.
However, she wrote that Thibault was the “primary aggressor,” leading to his arrest on charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
As of Wednesday evening, Thibault was being held without bond in the BSO Main Jail.