Road rage at Disney: No one charged in fight over parking spot
ORLANDO, Fla. —The state attorney’s office won’t file criminal charges after a Central Florida couple accused a tourist of pointing a gun at them in a road rage incident last year related to a dispute over a handicapped parking space at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, newly released records showed.
Ultimately, the state attorney’s office decided last month not to pursue an aggravated assault with a firearm charge because it said the case could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
The incident happened Feb. 10, 2019, when a Lake Mary couple in their early 60s waited for a car to back out so they could take the spot near the front of the theme park.
That’s when a gray SUV appeared and almost crashed into their vehicle to steal the spot, they told authorities.
The Lake Mary couple said the driver —who is a 67-year-old from Greensboro, N.C., pointed a gun at them.
“You can imagine, it’s just a little upsetting. A guy pulled a firearm,” the Lake Mary man told the 911 dispatcher, according to the call released by the state attorney’s office. “At Disney.”
The North Carolina man, whom the Sentinel is not naming because he wasn’t charged, denied he pointed a gun. His wife argued it was just a wallet in his hand.
But with a search warrant, Orange County sheriff’s office found a small black handgun held in a holster in the driver’s SUV door, the state attorney’s records showed.
The law-enforcement officer said it may have been hard for the Lake Mary couple to see the gun from their position in their car, records said.
The North Carolina husband and wife both had concealed weapon permits.
Disney did not immediately respond to a question Friday whether the North Carolina man had been banned from Disney property since the parks don’t allow weapons on the premises.