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Crotzer Claims "Stand Your Ground" Defense

Tampa Bay Times

In 2006 Alan Crotzer was exonerated for crimes he didn't commit after spending almost 25 years in prison. In the ensuing years, he was an advocate for wrongly convicted, and pushed for automatic restoration of voting rightsfor convicted felons who had completed their sentences.

But on July 29th, 2012, he was arrested in Tallahassee on an attempted murder charge after another man told police that Crotzer fired on him as they drove side-by-side on Apalachee Parkway.

Crotzer was uninjured, but the other man was shot in his left arm and leg.

The victim says the shooting was prompted by an argument over CD's he'd sold to Crotzer's girlfriend.

Crotzer's Attorney says his client was standing his ground.

Thomas Powell says the other man fired first, and that Crotzer was defending himself. In a motion to have the case dismissed under the state's Stand Your Ground law, Powell writes that Crotzer reasonably believed that the use of force was necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself.

Crotzer is still in the Leon County Jail. He's being held without bail.

Ronald J. Ebben has 50 years of experience in broadcast news. Ron’s first assignment was covering the Kennedy-Nixon 1960 election in Peoria, Ill. His first News Director position was in 1963 at a Fort Worth, Texas, radio station. He carried Kennedy speech in downtown Fort Worth before JFK was assassinated later that morning in Dallas. And he was in the newsroom to see those fateful words come over United Press International wire: the “president had been shot.” Ron served as News Director for Tampa Bay stations from 1968 to 1990 and hosted the “Live with the Governor” statewide call-in show with Gov. Bob Martinez. In 1990, he became News Director of a statewide network with 26 affiliates. From 1991 to 2000 Ron was News Director at WTNT and Program Director for WNLS. Since 2000 Ron has served as :Morning Edition: host for WFSU News.