Thinking the person at his back door at 2:30 a.m. is an intruder, the man fires. The victim's family says he was just asking for help.
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer
Published July 7, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - George Lawrence sensed something was wrong when he arrived home early Wednesday.
His door was open. His dog was acting funny. People were pushing a car down the street.
It was 2:30 a.m. Suspicious, he armed himself with a 9mm handgun.
Then, Lawrence saw a man approaching his back door. The man had something in his hand. Lawrence yelled at him.
But the man kept coming, Lawrence said. So he fired, hitting Antonio Costin twice in the upper body. The 24-year-old later died at Bayfront Medical Center.
As police investigated Wednesday, competing questions emerged. Was Costin an intruder who provoked a justified shooting? Or was it, as his family suggested, a tragic overreaction to a plea for help with a broken car?
Police say Costin was stepping into the back door of Lawrence's home when he was shot.
He did not have a weapon. He was carrying papers. Police declined to say what the papers were, citing the investigation, but Costin's family said police told them the documents showed who owns the car being pushed down the street.
They think Costin was seeking help for the car, which police say belongs to his girlfriend, and did not want the man to think it was being stolen. "I would have done the same thing," said Costin's sister, Likesa Costin, 29.
No charges were filed against Lawrence, 41, Wednesday. He has a concealed weapons permit, according to state records.
"Until we can complete the investigation, we really can't have a good conversation with the state attorney about the facts of the case," St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt said.
Contacted by the Times Wednesday, Lawrence, a postal worker, declined to comment. He has owned the house on 16th Avenue S since May, according to property records. He was renovating, police said.
Likesa Costin said police told the family her brother entered through a gate and went to the back of the house because that is where he saw Lawrence go. The rear of the house is surrounded by a 6-foot privacy fence.
"There's not a harmful bone in my brother's body," Likesa Costin said. She acknowledged her brother could have startled Lawrence. "But that doesn't justify shooting someone. He could have closed his door."
The circumstances invoke a debate over when it is lawful for a homeowner to use deadly force.
Earlier this year, lawmakers approved a bill giving people the right to shoot an attacker in a public place. The law also codified a common-law principle known as the "castle doctrine," which allows people to use deadly force if they are attacked in their homes or cars.
"They're basically telling us he was trying to break into the home," Likesa Costin said. "But I think he was just trying to get help."
On Tuesday, Costin's 24th birthday, he visited his girlfriend at Bayfront Medical Center. They had a baby girl on the Fourth of July.
Likesa Costin said her brother left the hospital at about 10 p.m. in his girlfriend's dark green Plymouth Breeze. He went home, changed clothes and went out to visit friends, stopping at some point at a liquor store.
At midnight, he called his girlfriend to say he was getting something to eat at either McDonald's or Red's Snack Shak on 16th Street S and that he would be there in the morning to take her home.
About two hours later, Costin was dead.
"There's no way to understand it," Costin's mother, Eliza Costin, 49, said as she walked Wednesday afternoon with her daughters near the scene of the shooting.
Her son graduated from St. Petersburg High School in 1999. He did odd jobs and recently helped his dad, a cross-country trucker. He could be frequently seen outside his mother's house on 22nd Avenue S, on the phone, according to his family.
State records show he had minor run-ins with police. In May 2003, an officer found two large knives in the map pocket of the driver's-side door of the car Costin was driving. He was arrested on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon. Costin said the knives were used for opening the gas cap on the vehicle and that they were put there by his mother - a story she backed Wednesday. Costin was also given a ticket for driving with a suspended license.
The family plans a July 16 funeral.
Alex Leary can be reached at 893-8472 or leary@sptimes.com Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.
