FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - The parent of a student attending Monarch High School in Coconut Creek has been arrested for allegedly directing his son to grab his gun to break up a fight.
Terry Loray maintains that he did not inherently tell his son to grab the gun, that his son was in fear for his life and they were acting in self-defense.
Loray, a utilities worker in Coconut Creek, was picking up his son from football practice last Wednesday when he saw a fight take place.
“He got in to protect and separate the people that were fighting, and then, from doing so, he motioned to his son to go to the car,” Loray’s attorney John James said. “The son comes to him with a firearm. Never said that he motioned to the son to grab a firearm, just that the son brought it back. Obviously, the son was in fear.”
According to the police report, Loray’s son “…pauses and appears to load (cock) the firearm, then again pointing it at people in an attempt to fire the weapon at them.”
The students at the school, according to the police report, said, “They got guns, bro.”
“It’s completely self-defense,” James said. “It also says that he was standing in a group of kids trying to get them to stop, pretty much trying to deescalate the issue.”
In the report, investigators said Loray told officers, “He had the firearm in his vehicle and retrieved it to protect his family from the other subjects there to fight his kids.”
However, prosecutors said no one else at the scene of the fight was armed.
“If he was able to have his son go to the car to get the firearm, there’s nothing to indicate that Mr. Loray couldn’t have just joined his son and left the scene altogether,” prosecutor Eric Linder said.
Loray claims his son went to grab mace from the car that was shaped like a gun. Detectives said they do not believe that side of the story.
Loray has been charged with possession of a firearm on school property. He has posted bond and is expected to be released from jail soon.
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