Last September, a homeless encampment in Minneapolis erupted in gunfire – 13 people shot, a school next door, a neighbor on camera saying his kids were afraid to leave the house.
Now it's happening in Florida.
And a man near a homeless camp in Leesburg pulled out a gun, tried to shoot an attacking dog, but killed an innocent man instead – and there's a middle school right next door.
An Armed Drifter, a Dead Man, and a School in Lockdown
Matthew Lee Pasco, 34, was hanging around a homeless encampment near Carver Middle School in Leesburg when a large dog attacked a woman nearby.
Pasco pulled out a gun and tried to shoot the dog.
He missed.
Instead, the bullet hit the dog's owner – who had jumped in front of the animal – and killed him.
"The boyfriend or the baby daddy of the girl was going to go shoot the dog and the owner jumped in front of it," a witness told 911 dispatchers as screaming and gunshots rang out in the background.
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The woman survived but was hospitalized with multiple dog bite wounds.
The dog's owner was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Pasco fled on foot and is still out there.
The Lake County Sheriff's Office says he is armed and dangerous – a 150-pound, 5-foot-11 white male with brown hair, brown eyes, and a prominent scar on the right side of his face, last seen in a navy blue T-shirt.
Carver Middle School went into lockdown the moment the shots rang out.
"I also heard the gunshot. Just hearing the shot – you don't know where it's coming from. It could be over here or over there," a nearby homeowner told reporters.
Parents sent their kids to school that morning with no idea an armed fugitive would be roaming the neighborhood by lunchtime.
Anyone with information can call the Lake County Sheriff's Office at 352-343-2101, email tips@lcso.org, or contact Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS.
Do not approach him.
This Isn't a Florida Story. It's an American Story.
Minneapolis, September 2025.
Seven people shot at a homeless encampment on Lake Street in a single night – four with life-threatening injuries, one woman dead days later.
It happened next to a school.
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A neighbor named Jeremiah Boblett stood on camera afterward and said what every parent in that neighborhood was thinking: "The drugs and the gangs and everything that's associated with this, it's a tragedy what's happened here and it's been allowed to go on for so long. It should have been stopped a long time ago before affecting these children in the school here."
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, had been trying to shut that encampment down for months.
The property owner refused.
Activists and lawyers blocked every attempt.
Frey cleared it the morning after the shooting – but a woman shot that night died of her wounds days later.
Now a middle school in Leesburg, Florida, is in lockdown because another encampment near another school produced another armed, dangerous man with nowhere to go and nothing to lose.
The Supreme Court Gave Cities the Green Light. Democrats Won't Use It.
The Supreme Court settled this question in June 2024.
In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Court ruled 6-3 that cities can enforce camping bans – fines, criminal trespass charges, all of it – without violating the Constitution.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion and was blunt about who should be making these decisions: "A handful of federal judges cannot begin to 'match' the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding 'how best to handle' a pressing social question like homelessness."
That ruling gave every city in America the green light to clear encampments.
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Democrat-run cities still won't do it.
They'll admit the camps are dangerous – Frey said it out loud the morning after the Lake Street shooting – and then spend months litigating with property owners and activists before acting.
Kids in Minneapolis couldn't wait for the school bus without their parents being afraid.
Kids in Leesburg went into lockdown because an armed man from a nearby camp shot someone to death.
The Court said cities can act.
Democrats are choosing not to.
Ask your local officials how many people have to die before they make a different choice.
Sources:
- David Spector, "Florida homeless man tries to shoot dog attacking woman, but shoots owner to death instead," New York Post, April 18, 2026.
- Lake County Sheriff's Office statement via Fox 13, April 2026.
- "Over a dozen injured in Minneapolis shootings at homeless camp and near transit station," Associated Press, September 16, 2025.
- "2 shot in head, 5 others injured at Minneapolis homeless encampment," CBS Minnesota, September 18, 2025.
- "Justices uphold ordinances regulating public homeless encampments," Constitution Center, June 28, 2024.
