Self-Defense Is Legal in Florida

University Professors hate that. Judge dismisses murder charge in DJ Shy Guy killing under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law

First the case in question.

A judge has dismissed the second-degree murder charge against a man who admitted shooting and killing Tampa DJ Dedrick Sykes during a traffic confrontation in Ybor City.

The judge ruled Joel Moreno Cobo acted in self-defense under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law when he shot Sykes, known professionally as DJ Shy Guy, in November 2025.

Ybor City is a neighborhood in Tampa, Florida.

As for the university professor...

Elizabeth Berenguer, a professor at Stetson University College of Law who has written several scholarly articles about Stand Your Ground, said the phrase describes multiple interconnected Florida laws.

The most familiar part eliminates the duty to retreat. A person who is somewhere they have a legal right to be does not have to try to escape before using force in response to a perceived threat.

While I have not looked at Florida, in general the Duty to Retreat was invented by the courts. No legislature ever passed such a law. (See below.)

Stetson University is in DeLand, Florida, which is in the Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach metropolitan area, on the Atlantic coast of Florida. Deland, Florida, is about a 40 mile drive north of Orlando.

As for The Duty to Retreat: Consider the case Runyan v. State, Indiana Supreme Court May of 1877

Indeed, the tendency of the American mind seems to be very strongly against the enforcement of any rule which requires a person to flee when assailed, to avoid chastisement or even to save human life, and that tendency is well illustrated by the recent decisions of our courts, bearing on the general subject of the right of self-defence.

It seems like the Left is gearing up for a fight on Stand Your Ground. I've seen a few stories like this in the recent past.