Judge leaves charge of murder stand, denying ‘Stand Your Ground’ claim
It started with a parking dispute at a Miami car wash. A man in an SUV pulled a gun. Then, so did the business owner.
It ended when SUV passenger Said Silwany strode toward 64-year-old John Haugabook, firing a fatal flurry of bullets into the chest of the car wash owner — a shooting depicted on surveillance video.
Silwany claimed selfdefense under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, arguing that Haugabook was about to point his weapon at him — yet another case of armed citizens in Miami confronting each other in a public space. A Miami-Dade judge has refused to dismiss the second-degree murder charge, ruling that Silwany was the clear aggressor.
“Silwany was a mere feet from his car while Haugabook held the gun pointed down at his side,” Circuit Judge Miguel de la O wrote in a decision released late last month.
Silwany, the judge wrote, “escalated the situation by aggressively approaching Haugabook, and now seeks to be excused for killing Haugabook.”
Silwany, 32, remains in a Miami-Dade jail while awaiting a trial by jury. His attorneys, Pat Dray and
Abe Laeser, say they will explore whether to appeal.
“He’s confident that a jury will reach the right result,” Dray said of his client. “The video is very clear — Haugabook was the aggressor.”
Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, first passed in 2005, has long been a lightning rod for controversy — it eliminated a duty to retreat when confronting an aggressor threatening death or great bodily harm. It also gave judges the ability to grant “immunity” to someone they deem acted in selfdefense, and later forced prosecutors at those hearings to shoulder the burden of proving a defendant did not act in selfdefense.
Over the past 17 years, the law has figured in a steady stream of controversial shootings involving confrontations in public spaces, including the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford. Although gunman George Zimmerman did not ask for a pretrial immunity hearing, the jury that acquitted him heard the legal instructions that Zimmerman had “no duty to retreat.”
In Silwany’s case, the judge ruled, he did actually have a duty to retreat because he was the initial aggressor.
Like Silwany, many other high-profile defendants have sought immunity before trial, and lost.
That includes Kendall’s Omar Rodriguez, who shot and killed an unarmed man in a dispute over dog poop; four men accused of beating up gay men at a Pride Parade on South Beach; and Tampa’s Curtis Reeves, who shot and killed an unarmed movie theater patron after the man threw popcorn at him (Reeves was acquitted at a jury trial).
In another notable case at a Miami-Dade car wash, prosecutors cited Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in not filing charges against an employee who shot and killed a would-be car thief at South Beach Finest Hand Car Wash in 2018.
Haugabook’s shooting took place Oct. 22, 2021, around 4 p.m. at the hand car wash next to a liquor store at 9125 NW 22nd Ave.
That afternoon, a Dodge Durango driven by Silwany’s sister parked in the car wash area. Haugabook approached and asked them to move the SUV, since they were not getting a car wash.
The sister moved the SUV to a different position in the same area. Silwany, one of the passengers, got out and walked into the liquor store. As he walked out, video showed, he was seen holding a gun “without any provocation,” according to an arrest warrant.
Video showed Haugabook then pulled his own pistol, leaving it pointed down. The two “exchanged words” before Silwany stepped forward and the two appeared to argue. Then, as the argument escalated, Silwany fired 11 shots at the car wash owner, who appeared to try to return fire before crumpling to the ground.
Silwany, on the video, is seen picking up the mortally wounded man’s gun. According to police, Silwany got back into the SUV and the group drove off.
During a Stand Your Ground hearing last month, the video was parsed in detail.
Silwany, his lawyers said, opened fire because he saw Haugabook — a convicted felon who shouldn’t have possessed a weapon — had loudly racked his large pistol with a 30-round magazine. Silwany believed Haugabook was in the process of raising his arm, lawyers said.
But the judge agreed with prosecutor Justin Funck, saying the video doesn’t back up the claim.
In his 13-page order, de la O takes pains to point out that, in a place where both men had the right to have a gun, Silwany went too far.