John McGivney had enough.
He loaded his .380-caliber handgun Friday
afternoon, walked out to the parking lot of his Lauderdale-by-the-Sea
apartment building and fired four shots into the hood
of his ailing Chrysler.
"I'm putting my car out of its
misery," McGivney told his landlord.
But the Broward Sheriff's Office didn't
see it as a mercy killing. They arrested McGivney on
a misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm in public.
After
a night in jail, he was back at his Bougainvilla Isles
apartment on $100 bond -- the bullet-riddled 1994 Chrysler
LeBaron LX dead in the spot where he left it. McGivney
said Tuesday he hasn't tried to start the car and suspects
that the four slugs he fired into it probably made his
car trouble worse.
McGivney, 64, said the car has been
giving him trouble for years and had "outlived
its usefulness."
He called the shooting "dumb,"
and said he'll probably be evicted. But he doesn't regret
a thing.
"I think every guy in the universe
has wanted to do it," McGivney said. "It was
worth every damn minute in that jail." |