The shooting incident, according to Lake Mary Police Chief Steve Bracknell, occurred at about 12:45 p.m. Monday, close to the entrance to Trailhead Park near Lake Mary Boulevard and Rhinehart Road, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
A police spokeswoman Bianca Gillet, confirmed that Zimmerman was not the shooter. The shooter was identified as Matthew Apperson.
Apperson allegedly shot at Zimmerman who was driving a car.
George Paschek, a local resident, said he heard the sound of two gunshots but thought he was mistaken. But he realized there had actually been gunshots when he heard the report on the news.
According to The Huffington Post, Zimmerman was in Lake Mary to celebrate Mother’s Day with his mother who resides in Lake Mary.
Police Chief Steve Bracknell earlier told WESH TV that the shooting might have been a “road-rage incident” but explained later that Zimmerman and the shooter had known each other before and that the shooting appeared linked to an “ongoing” dispute between Zimmerman and the shooter.
Zimmerman’s attorney Don West, said Zimmerman was driving when he noticed another driver behind him. He recognized the driver as someone he had an altercation with in September.
According to West, Zimmerman tried to drive away after the driver pulled up beside him and shouted obscenities. But the man fired at Zimmerman through the passenger side window. The bullet missed Zimmerman’s head, according to West, but he suffered minor facial injuries from sprayed glass and other debris.
West said:
“George was driving down the road on Lake Mary Boulevard. This guy was sort of following him and flashing lights and such. (Zimmerman) decided to get away from him, decided to make a U-turn. And this guy made a U-turn right behind him and then pulled up alongside him and shot at him.”
But Apperson has said through his attorney Mark NeJame of NeJame Law that he acted in self-defense after Zimmerman waved a gun at him.
“It doesn’t surprise me this fellow would say (that) George waved a gun or did something. He’s in a lot of trouble. That’s a very serious crime,” West countered.
Images posted to social media show a bullet hole in the passenger window of the vehicle Zimmerman was driving. Zimmerman was seen being taken away in an ambulance to Central Florida Regional Hospital for treatment.
He has since been released from hospital.
A witness, Ricardo Berrare, told WESH TV that the injuries Zimmerman suffered were not serious.
“He [Zimmerman] walked normally into the ambulance, so he wasn’t being helped or nothing,” Berrare said.
CNN reports that an employee at the nearby Cyrus Diagnostic Imaging, Kenneth Cornell, said he was getting out of his car after lunch when the alleged shooter drove up and began shouting that he had shot Zimmerman and asked for someone to call 911.
“I shot George Zimmerman,” Apperson allegedly yelled. “I don’t have a phone.”
The alleged shooter then got on the phone and explained the situation to the 911 dispatcher.
Zimmerman also apparently flagged down an officer and reported that he had been involved in a shooting.
According to Cornell, Apperson said he and Zimmerman had a previous dispute and that he shot at Zimmerman after he waved a gun at him.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that in the previous confrontation between Zimmerman and Apperson in September, Zimmerman allegedly threatened to shoot Apperson. Apperson reportedly told a 911 dispatcher that Zimmerman threatened to shoot him.
But according to police, Zimmerman was not arrested because Apperson refused to press charges.
Police said the shooting was being investigated and that Apperson was cooperating with police investigators, according to CNN. But no one has been arrested or charged.
A Seminole County jury acquitted Zimmerman in July 2013 of charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman, then a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Florida, shot and killed Martin on February 26, 2012, after he called 911 to report a “suspicious person” and ignored advice not to follow the person.
He has since been involved in several other run-ins with the law.
In September 2013, his estranged wife Shellie and father-in-law alleged Zimmerman threatened them with a gun.
He was arrested on charges of “aggravated assault and misdemeanor counts of domestic violence battery and criminal mischief” in November 2013 and spent two days in Seminole County jail after his girlfriend at the time alleged he threatened her with a gun. But charges were never filed against him because the girlfriend recanted her story.
In September 2014, another driver in Lake Mary accused Zimmerman of threatening to kill him.
On January 9, 2014, yet another girlfriend accused him of assault, but she also later recanted her story and no charges were filed.
