An off-duty agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was left permanently paralyzed after he was shot in the neck, his wife said in a pre-trial hearing Thursday.
The incident happened the night of Dec. 27, when agent Matthew Murray tried breaking up a fight outside a bowling alley in Riverview, Florida, according to WTVT-TV in Tampa.
Murray, along with his wife, children, and a few family friends, had just walked outside the building when they noticed two men and a woman fighting.
Murray stepped in to break it up, identifying himself as law enforcement.
“It was automatically people trying to start a fight and my husband trying to deescalate it right from the start,” Courtney Murray, the agent’s wife, testified during the hearing. “Right as we walked out the door. It’s like we walked into an ambush almost.”
“He was telling them just to go home,” she said. “He said ‘you guys just need to leave.’ He said ‘we have kids,’” she said at the hearing, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The night of the shooting, she then heard someone reply: “I don’t give a f**k about your kids.”
Someone also reportedly threw a bottle or cup at her husband, Murray said, per WTVT-TV.
JUST IN: Off-duty ATF agent paralyzed after being shot in the neck trying to stop a fight while leaving a bowling alley with his family ‘WE DON’T GIVE A F-CK ABOUT YOUR KIDS’
18-year-old Christopher Smith was arrested seven hours after the shooting and faces charges of attempted… pic.twitter.com/55HrHuYHEA
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) January 3, 2025
If found guilty, should Smith face the death penalty?
Christopher Smith, the 18-year-old who allegedly shot Murray, claimed to investigators that the agent at some point had hit him in the shoulder.
“(Smith) stated that he blacked out and shot (Murray) once,” Det. Keaton Bruce of Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office testified at the hearing.
Police arrested Smith at a nearby home hours after the incident but have still not located the firearm.
Investigators present at the trial said Smith’s walk appeared to match that of the assailant’s in the security footage, even appearing to have a similar limp.
No witnesses were present on Smith’s behalf during the pre-trial.
Smith’s defense argued that he had no prior record.
The judge ultimately denied bond for Smith.
As for Murray, he remains in intensive care, partially paralyzed, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
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