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Inset: Nicholas Carrasquillo (Orange County Jail). Background: Scene of fatal road rage shooting in Orlando, Florida (WKMG/YouTube).
A Florida man faces decades behind bars after a jury has convicted him of second-degree murder in a road rage shooting that killed a father who was driving to his first day at a new job.
Nicholas Carrasquillo, 27, shot and killed 30-year-old David Alexzander Sligh in Orlando on Jan. 22, 2024. At trial, Carrasquillo took the stand on his own behalf to claim self-defense. According to a courtroom report from local NBC affiliate WESH, Carrasquillo testified he was driving to his grandmother’s house when Sligh cut him off. After a shouting match at a traffic light, Carrasquillo claimed Sligh blocked his car and wouldn’t let him leave even after the light turned green.
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The defendant said he felt trapped, so he grabbed his gun and stepped out of his car. Sligh turned his head, which made Carrasquillo think he was grabbing for something so the defendant fired a warning shot into the ground — followed by five shots into Sligh’s car, killing him.
Sligh did not have a weapon.
Carrasquillo still insisted he fired in self-defense.
“I wasn’t the one driving recklessly that morning,” he said during his trial.
“OK, no, you were the person that shot somebody in the back of the head, right?” the prosecutor retorted.
“I’m the person who saved my life, sir,” Carrasquillo claimed.
But the jury didn’t buy his story and convicted him. A sentencing date has yet to be set.
As Law&Crime previously reported, a probable cause arrest affidavit said the Orlando Police Department began receiving calls about the incident shortly before 6:30 a.m. on the day of the incident. Officers responded and found a white Chevrolet Impala crashed on the sidewalk on East Colonial Drive near Lake Baldwin Lane. They found Sligh inside the car unconscious and bleeding from his head.
Paramedics rushed him to the hospital where a doctor pronounced him dead around 7:04 a.m.
At the scene, investigators recovered six shell casings. Witnesses parked at a Best Buy identified Carrasquillo as the shooter to officers as he was walking up to them, the affidavit said. Cops took him into custody and he agreed to an interview.
A man has been arrested in connection to this morning’s deadly road rage altercation. The suspect, 26-year-old Nicholas Carrasquillo, is charged with First Degree Murder with a Firearm. pic.twitter.com/3t1I2yVWsY
— Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) January 22, 2024
He told police Sligh cut him off so he honked his horn and flashed his lights. Sligh pulled down his window and yelled something at him, Carrasquillo said. His window doesn’t work, so he opened the door to try and hear what he said. The two exchanged words and Carrasquillo grabbed a gun from his glove box and stepped out of his car with one foot on the pavement and the other on the brake, he told cops. The red light turned green but Sligh, who was still in front of Carrasquillo, didn’t move.
Carrasquillo allegedly admitted he shot once into the road and fired several more rounds at Sligh’s vehicle a few seconds later. He claimed he was only trying to “maim” the other driver, the affidavit said. He never saw the other driver with a gun nor did Sligh get out of his car, the affidavit said. Carrasquillo reportedly said he grabbed his gun because he felt trapped, but admitted he could have simply driven around the other car.
“I don’t know how somebody that angry can do something like that,” Sligh’s uncle David Bouton told ABC affiliate WFTV. “I don’t know how that could ever pan out.”
Bouton said his nephew was the father of a 1-year-old son and was driving to the first day of a new job when he was killed. Bouton considered Sligh his son.
“He lost his life,” Bouton said in the interview with WFTV. “He lost his hopes. He lost his dreams. And we lost our son.”