MIRAMAR, Fla. – Charges have been dropped against the man who pulled the trigger in a fatal shooting that played out inside a busy Walgreens Pharmacy.
It happened on Feb. 3 at the Walgreens located at 2499 SW 101st Ave., in Miramar.
That man, 28-year-old Jaime Taylor, wiped the tears from his face Monday, days after learning the serious charges he was facing had been dropped.
“Unfortunately, that had to happen, but I just know at the moment it was killed or be killed,” said Taylor.
The charges all stemmed from a shooting that played out when Taylor said a man he’d never met walked into the pharmacy, provoking and threatening him.
“I guess he thought I was looking at his girl or something, and then he told me that I am looking too hard,” said Taylor.
That man was 27-year-old Anthony Souvenir, who was in that Walgreens with his girlfriend and 1-year-old son when Taylor said Souvenir confronted him.
“He just kept talking and kept talking and I told him, ‘I am not talking to you,’ and his girlfriend told him that I wasn’t talking to him either,” said Taylor. “He told me that ‘I see you got a gun and I got one too.‘”
But Taylor said it’s not until he saw that gun that he shot Souvenir to protect himself.
“When he went to come to me, he was all the way at the back of the store. He walked by me and said what he had to say and then came all the way from the back of the store to the front of the store and said, ‘I am going to show you,‘” said Taylor. “I shot when he pulled it out.”
As Taylor was joined by his pastor, his attorney and his family, the former Booker T. Washington High School quarterback and football player at Northwest Missouri State says the last thing he wanted to do was take a life.
While he still struggles with what he said he had to do, he is just fortunate his 1-year-old daughter still has her father.
“I am sorry for the loss. I am sorry that it had to happen like that. I pray for the family,” said Taylor.
Taylor said he ran off after the shooting because he was being shot at and dropped his phone, unable to call police.
It’s only after he saw police respond that he returned and was taken into custody. He said his plans now are to return to college.