A jury found a man guilty of killing one person in a June 2022 Poinciana incident and attempting to kill two others.
Safari Rodriguez, now 21, was found guilty of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder with a firearm and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Sentencing has not yet been scheduled, but prosecutors said Rodriguez is eligible for the firearm minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years to life. Prior to the June 3, 2022 incident, Rodriguez had no prior criminal record in Osceola County, per Clerk of Court records.
Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies responded to Saint Tropez Court in the Poinciana area regarding a shooting. Prosecutors alleged Rodriguez, armed with a rifle, shot and killed Alejandro Armando Guzman as he sat in a vehicle in the driveway. A woman inside the house came outside to confront Rodriguez and convince him to drop the weapon. Instead, Rodriguez shot her in the head. She ran back inside the home and hid in a bathroom with additional occupants of the house.
Rodriguez fired several shots at a man outside the home who witnessed Rodriguez shoot the second victim, the he entered the home and unsuccessfully tried to break into the bathroom. As Rodriguez left the home, he pointed his rifle at a third man who was outside the house. All of the witnesses survived, and testified in last week’s trial.
On June 29, nearly four weeks after the shooting, Rodriguez was tracked down in Bay County in the Florida Panhandle; the United States Marshal’s Service arrested Rodriguez for an active warrant on the attempted murder. On July 8, Osceola County Sheriff’s detectives obtained a warrant for murder and aggravated assault with a firearm for Rodriguez, and he was returned to Osceola and remanded to the Osceola County Jail. He remains there awaiting sentencing.
