VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – A judge has dismissed a case against a 79-year-old Volusia County man accused of shooting his next-door neighbor who was trimming a tree on the defendant’s property, saying the man met the standard under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.
Edward Druzolowski faced second-degree murder charges in the 2023 death of Brian Ford.
Ford was trimming a tree that had branches over both properties. When Ford began trimming branches on Druzolowski’s property, Druzolowski asked Ford to leave. Investigators said Ford started moving toward Druzolowski and yelling at him, so Druzolowski shot Ford.
Prosecutors said Ford did not make enough threats that would warrant being shot.
However, the judge, in her ruling, said Ford was known for being violent and bragged about beating up fellow inmates in prison. The judge also said Druzolowski did not brandish the gun right away until after Ford started yelling and cursing, and he continued to do so even after Druzolowski told Ford to stop or he would shoot.
“Based upon the aggressive actions of Mr. Ford, his violent reputation, the age and size differences between the two men, the defendant believed that such force was reasonably necessary to defend himself from Mr. Ford’s imminent use of unlawful force,” Judge Dawn Nichols wrote.
Court records show that Ford had a history of criminal arrests dating back to the early 2000s, being previously convicted of charges like battery and dealing in stolen property.
In 2016, Ford was found guilty after deputies said he “headbutted” his mother during an argument. He later pleaded no contest in two other cases where he sold his mother’s tools to a Deland pawn shop and fraudulently used someone else’s credit card, per investigators.
Most recently, Ford was convicted of felony battery in a 2021 domestic violence case, as well as attempted aggravated battery in a 2020 case after Ford was accused of throwing a metal pipe at his mother.
“I thought this was a textbook, prototypical Stand Your Ground defense,” Druzolowski’s attorney Scott Richardson said. “Mr. Druzolowski was 78 years old. He had no prior dust-ups with law enforcement.”
In November, Richardson filed the motion to dismiss the second-degree murder charge against Druzolowski. Richardson had argued Druzolowski’s justification for the shooting under the state’s Stand Your Ground law.
“He warned the gentleman off his property. He warned him not to come closer. He said a warning click of the revolver. Again, this only made the man advance on him more rapidly, yelling curse words and menacing words like ‘I’m going to cut your head off with a chainsaw.’”
Prosecutors, however, argued that Ford did not pose enough of a threat to justify being shot.
“He’s not running after the defendant. He’s not chasing him. Just because someone is walking toward you does not mean that they are a threat to you,” Volusia County Assistant State Attorney Jeanne Stratis told the judge last month.
But Judge Nichols wrote in her ruling that prosecutors hadn’t met the burden of proof necessary to overcome Druzolowski’s claim of immunity.
When asked why it was so important to dismiss the case instead of letting it go to a jury trial, Richardson stated the following:
“The stakes are too high for a jury trial. Had he lost the Stand Your Ground here, and there’s an appellate process for that, we would not have gone right into trial. He would have appealed the denial, the Stand Your Ground motion, and ultimately, it was a case we were going to trial either way. He was not going to accept a plea. Any kind of sentence would have been a death sentence for him because of his health and his age.”
Attorney Scott Richardson
Druzolowski was out on bond already.
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