PALMETTO, Fla. — The Manatee County Sheriff's Office arrested a man accused of shooting and critically injuring a person after a fight Friday night in Palmetto.
At around 7:30 p.m., deputies responded to the area of 2nd Avenue where a man was reportedly found lying along the side of the road with a gunshot wound to his head.
He was taken to Blake Hospital in critical condition and is not expected to survive, the Manatee County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.
According to the agency, the man who was shot was in a fight with another man a few blocks away before the shooting happened. An investigation led detectives to identify the shooter as Leroy Lee Hope Sr.
Deputies say Hope drove his car by the 60-year-old man, who was on a bicycle, pulled over, got out of his car and shot him before driving away. They believe Hope shot the man in response to the previous fight they had.
Hope was arrested the next day on an unrelated charge of DUI as detectives were still trying to connect him to the shooting. He's still in custody, and charges for the shooting are currently pending.
