Orlando, Florida, police investigate a road rage shooting that occurred around 6:30 a.m. Jan. 22, 2024. Nicholas Carrasquillo, inset, allegedly shot and killed David Sligh, who then crashed his white Chevrolet Impala seen above. Carrasquillo said he shot Sligh after being cut off. (Mug shot: Orange County Jail; Scene: WKMG/YouTube)
A road rage incident in Orlando, Florida, led to the death of a father who was on his way to his first day of work at a new job.
Nicholas Carrasquillo, 26, is facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of David Alexzander Sligh. According to a probable cause arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, the Orlando Police Department began receiving calls about the incident shortly before 6:30 a.m. on Monday. Officers responded and found a white Chevrolet Impala crashed on the sidewalk on East Colonial Drive near Lake Baldwin Lane. They found Sligh, 30, inside the car unconscious and bleeding from his head.
Paramedics rushed him to the hospital where a doctor pronounced him dead around 7:04 a.m.
At the scene, investigators recovered six shell casings. Witnesses parked at a Best Buy identified Carrasquillo as the shooter to officers as he was walking up to them, the affidavit said. Cops took him into custody and he agreed to an interview.
A man has been arrested in connection to this morning’s deadly road rage altercation. The suspect, 26-year-old Nicholas Carrasquillo, is charged with First Degree Murder with a Firearm. pic.twitter.com/3t1I2yVWsY
— Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) January 22, 2024
Carrasquillo allegedly told police Sligh cut him off so he honked his horn and flashed his lights. Sligh pulled down his window and yelled something at him, Carrasquillo said. His window doesn’t work, so he opened the door to try and hear what he said. The two exchanged words and Carrasquillo grabbed a gun in his glovebox and stepped out of his car with one foot on the pavement and the other on the brake, he told cops. The red light turned green but Sligh, who was still in front of Carrasquillo, didn’t move.
Carrasquillo allegedly admitted he shot once into the road and fired several more rounds at Sligh’s vehicle a few seconds later. He claimed he was only trying to “maim” the other driver, the affidavit said. He never saw the other driver with a gun nor did Sligh get out of his car, the affidavit said. Carrasquillo said he grabbed his gun because he felt trapped, but admitted he could have simply driven around the other car.
“I don’t know how somebody that angry can do something like that,” Sligh’s uncle David Bouton told ABC affiliate WFTV. “I don’t know how that could ever pan out.”
Bouton said his nephew was the father of a 1-year-old son and was driving to the first day of a new job when he was killed. Bouton considered Sligh his son.
“He lost his life,” Bouton said in the interview with WFTV. “He lost his hopes. He lost his dreams. And we lost our son.”
