State irons out details of fatal Waffle House shooting

The state attorney's office released more details and a video Friday of a fatal Waffle House shooting.

An investigation showed the shooter, 28-year-old Jehrardd Williams, shot and killed in self-defense as he was being charged by a shirtless man who had been yelling racial slurs at him minutes earlier, according to a Lee County Sheriff's Office report.

Williams shot Dakota Fields, of Fort Myers, three times as the 24-year-old rushed toward him, the report said. Fields died six miles down the road from the restaurant after the SUV he and friends left in struck a car at the foot of the Edison Bridge.

After shooting Fields, Williams called 911 and told the dispatcher that he had shot at someone who made him fear for his life and said he would place his handgun on the restaurant's counter and deputies would find him lying on the floor, which they did.

On Jan. 5 about 2:40 a.m., Williams walked into the Waffle House at 4050 Boatways Road legally carrying a .40-caliber Smith and Wesson pistol. The employees knew him because he frequented the restaurant.

As soon as Williams walked in, he was "immediately verbally confronted by a group of males who were drunk," the report said. Fields was acting the most aggressive of the group, who had brought beers into the breakfast-centric restaurant.

Williams remembers Fields saying "I am talking to both of you (n-words)," to him along with customer who investigators identified as Hispanic in the report. Both ignored the racist remarks.

After employees asked Fields to leave, he stormed out of the restaurant and took his shirt off as if to start a fight.

Mere minutes after Fields left, a friend of his, Robert Black, came up to Williams trying to shake his hand and apologize, the report said.

But Williams crossed his arms in front and shook his head side to side.

When Williams refused to shake his hand, Black hit Williams in the face. And Williams pulled out his gun.

"(Williams) did not fire at Black who had just punched him in the head. Instead he showed extreme restraint by taking several steps back and held the gun down at his side," a deputy wrote in the report.

During a short shouting match, Black started creeping toward the door that was being held open by another member of the raucous group. That's when Fields burst through the already-open door and lunged at Williams in an apparent sneak attack.

"(Williams) began to fear that all four males were going to attack him ... (and) felt there was no other options but to shoot at Fields to prevent his attack," the report said.

A woman who was in a booth eating with her father during the shooting, told investigators she ducked her head as soon as the shooting started.

She said saw blood on the ground and heard Williams say, "I told him."

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