Vero Beach Shooting: A Neighbors View

Vero Beach Shooting : A Neighbors View

Today I was contacted by David James Wetherell with photos from the shooting that happened this week in Vero Beach. (For the record I am always appreciative when you guys contact me for what ever reason.)

This past week Taylor Reese was awoken to the sounds of his front door being kicked in. Reese then armed himself to confront the intruder(s). He told the deputies that he stepped just outside of his front door and saw Howard Bartee III. Bartee  immediately fired upon Reese. The two exchanged gunfire. Bartee was struck twice. Then Bartee ran northwest from the home and collapsed in the street.

Not a typical day in the Treasure Coast but it seems like crime is becoming more common.

Here is David’s experience:

“We have heard 2 gunshots around 5:30 as we were in the living room watching TV and we all looked at each other like what was that?!?!? And then there was a little pause, after then the gunshots continued on until finally they stopped and we went outside and the home owner could see that our next door neighbor was frightened after going on to see what happened and the home owner dropped his gun and yelled out “Call 911, Call 911!!” The suspect was hit twice by the shots and tried to escape but did not have enough strength so he collapsed onto the road until the authorities arrived. We were all in shocked and all the neighbors came out as the authorities came to the scene.

This was a very rare moment for all of us. We had talked to a neighbor that lived a street over and told us she lived here for 26 years or so and something like this is very surprising and feels that every day is getting even more dangerous. It’s very very sad to think of.

This wasn’t expected at all, we all thought it was just another regular day. The neighbors to us seemed like good people, they woke up and went to work and came home, ate dinner and went to sleep but we never know. These are 2 young brothers around their high 20s and early 30s by estimation.

(When we first heard the gunshots, we all never thought it was gunshots, we all thought it was a car backfiring.)”

First of all, thank you David for sharing this with all of us.

So the question is how do we as citizens move forward.

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

TreasureCoast

TreasureCoast

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  • Posted 6 years ago

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