A 79-year-old man who accidentally shot a 12-year-old boy is expected to be released from jail Thursday after a Broward judge ordered the elderly man feed.
James McIvery has been in jail for nearly three weeks after the Aug. 7 shooting incident, which landed the pre-teen in the hospital after the bullet got lodged in the boy's stomach.
Melissa McNeill, McIvery's attorney, said her client would be fitted with an ankle monitor and then freed. McIvery is not allowed to have contact with the boy or his family and can only leave his house for medical appointments, court dates or church, she said.
The incident has struck a chord in the community because it pits the elderly against youngsters. McIvery's neighbors saw him as a victim because the boy and his friends allegedly regularly harassed residents in the mostly elderly apartment complex.
Even a Broward bond court judge appeared to be sympathetic to McIvery's situation when he read the police report.
According to Fort Lauderdale Police, the boy and his friends were playing football in the street in the 700 block of 12th Terrace.
Police said the boys continually knocked on McIvery's apartment door and ran away. A fed-up McIvery walked out of his apartment and fired two shots into the ground but one of hem ricocheted and hit the boy.
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McIvery told cops the boys had been harassing him all day and that he was only trying to scare them off, a police report stated.
