Man guarding turtle's nest shot in buttocks with own gun by possibly intoxicated man

A Florida man believed to have been intoxicated was arrested on late Friday night after, authorities and witnesses said, he shot an elderly man with whom he was having an argument over a turtle's nest in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, sending the victim to the hospital. According to the Broward Sheriff's Office, 72-year-old Stan Pannaman went to the beach to watch over a turtle egg nest along with his friend Doug Young, President of South Florida's Audobon Society, at around 11pm. Young said he and Pannaman had volunteered to wait for baby sea turtles to hatch so they could help them into the ocean.



Then, Young said, they were approached by the subject, who engaged into a verbal altercation with the older men. "He said, 'I'm going to get you, you [expletive] sea turtle people,' and he said, 'I'm going to beat the [expletive] out of you,'" said Young. Young said things quickly grew heated from that point on. "He went to the nest and aggressively started pulling those four stakes around the nest. He started pulling the stakes out of the nest," he said. Young said he told the man, later identified as 38-year-old Michael McAuliffe, to stop what he was doing because he was breaking the law by messing with the nest, but he wouldn't listen.



"Things were escalating, and Stan said, 'Listen, I've got a gun,'" said Young, who added his friend then pulled out the small firearm hoping the suspect would back off. According to Young, the opposite happened. "He came at Stan, pulled him to the ground, and went after the gun," he said, adding the weapon somehow ended up in McAuliffe's hands. "He holds the gun up towards - kind of aims it more at Stanley than at me, and he says, 'I'm going to shoot you,' and there was a little bit of action," Young continued. "He didn't believe it was a real gun, and he shot Stan." When asked where his friend had been struck, Young said, "It's actually lodged in his behind."



He said Pannaman had also been pistol-whipped in the forehead. Rather than flee, Young said, McAuliffe stayed at the scene while he called the police. "When he realised [what had happened], he freaked out, sat down in the sand, put the gun down," he said. Within minutes, more than a dozen police officers arrived at the scene. Pannaman was transported to Broward General Hospital, where he was treated and released. The wound on his forehead did not require any stitches. McAuliffe remains behind bars and is facing multiple charges, including two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and weapon possession by a convicted felon. Pannaman continues to recover at home.

With news video.