SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Oviedo police said a 22-year-old opened fire, critically injuring a woman during an apparent road rage incident Tuesday night. While the accused gunman remains behind bars, the victim’s family said she is laying in a hospital bed.
Actavia Beard is fighting for her life after the June 28 shooting, her sister told News 6 Thursday. Tiffany Beard said it is devastating to see her sister in this condition. She has only been able to exchange a few words with her since the shooting.
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“She’s a very energetic, alive person, and she just looks like she has really no life in her,” Tiffany Beard said.
Tiffany Beard said one of her sister’s kidneys is gone, and she has other injuries to her intestines.
Oviedo police said she was shot in the torso during a confrontation on Alafaya Trail.
Beard’s sister told News 6 Actavia Beard was in town visiting from New York. On Tuesday, she went out to get food and never came back. Tiffany Beard said police knocked on her door hours later, and she learned what happened.
News 6 obtained the arrest report for the accused shooter, 22-year-old Keegan Johnson. It shows Johnson was a passenger in a vehicle driven by a 23-year-old woman, who began “aggressively honking” at the victim’s vehicle on Alafaya Trail near Mitchell Hammock Road.
“Maybe she didn’t move fast enough when the light changed, and somebody was honking, something along that line,” police Chief Dale Coleman said. “As far as I know, it wasn’t anything significant, nothing that we haven’t all experienced.”
Oviedo police said when both cars stopped at the next traffic light, the encounter escalated.
“There was an altercation. The two cars stopped. Some bottles of water were thrown from the suspect car towards the victim’s car,” said Coleman.
Witnesses at the scene told News 6 the woman got out of her car and approached the other vehicle.
“They then throw a soda can at her,” said Luke Bono, who happened to see the confrontation on the way home from dinner Tuesday night. “She then picked it up off the ground, threw it at the car. That’s when two shots — pop pop.”
Detectives said the eyewitness accounts and cell phone video are now key to their investigation. According to the arrest report, Johnson told officers he shot Actavia Beard in self-defense, claiming she hit him with her fist and her “right hand was shielded from his view, and he believed she could have had a weapon/knife.”
Police said that based on their initial investigation, his story does not match the witness testimony and video evidence gathered at the scene.
Johnson is now facing attempted homicide and aggravated battery charges. Tiffany Beard said she wants answers.
“Did you feel like it was necessary to pull the trigger? What? Was it that bad?” Tiffany Beard asked. “I just wish he would’ve handled the situation a lot differently.”
Tiffany Beard said her sister is one of 18 siblings from the Bronx, New York. She is also a mother and grandmother with a now uncertain future.
“Just to see her like this does bring tears to my eyes and my family,” she said.
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