Uber driver Robert Westlake is very remorseful after shooting and killing a Florida man who cut him off, but he has the full support of the local sheriff.
After the man, Jason Boek, swerved in front of him, he stopped his truck to prevent Westlake from proceeding. Boek got out and approached Westlake, saying he had a pistol — that would be the last thing he ever said.
“You know I got a pistol?” Boek said, holding an object in the air. “You want me to f*cking shoot you?”
Westlake, a licensed armed security guard, has a concealed weapon permit and had just completed training to be a police officer.
“All that went through my head was I’m not getting shot and that’s when I popped up,” he said.
A father of three, with a baby on the way, Westlake told ABC affiliate WFTS-TV that he thought about who would take care of his family before shooting Boek.
#EXCLUSIVE @Uber driver that shot and killed another man in self defense said he is filled with guilt. The father of 3 with a baby on the way said when the man threatened him with a gun he thought “who is going to take care of my family?” @abcactionnews pic.twitter.com/g5KAg3uuZo
— Michael Paluska (@MichaelPaluska) August 31, 2018
And while he shot him in self-defense, the Uber driver is still racked with guilt, even though he tried to administer first aid.
“Everybody tells me what I did was right, but you feel like, ‘Did I have to?’ after the fact,” he told WFTS. “I wish the whole chain of events didn’t happen.”
Making matters all the more difficult, Boek was not armed, using his cell phone to mimic a weapon. He had just gotten into a fight with his girlfriend at a local bar and thought she was in the Uber vehicle — she was not.
But Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd is backing Westlake’s play all the way.
“This is a justifiable homicide all day long. You have the right protect yourself,” Judd said. “This was the intent of the law.”
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The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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