Roy Middleton lying in a hospital bed after being shot by Escambia County sheriff's deputies outside his home. (Kevin Robinson / Pensacola News Journal)

Roy Middleton lying in a hospital bed after being shot by Escambia County sheriff’s deputies outside his home. (Kevin Robinson / Pensacola News Journal)

Roy Middleton, a 60-year-old African American man living in Florida, was racially profiled twice on Saturday night and was almost killed because of it.

Middleton was in his  driveway at 2:45 a.m. searching for a loose cigarette in his mother’s car when he was shot in the leg by  Escambia County sheriff’s deputes. Why? Because they believed he was a burglar. 

It turns out a neighbor had called 911 to report a possible robbery, telling the dispatcher that a strange man was reaching into Middleton’s car. The police must have arrived quickly because Middleton was still looking for the cigarette when they arrived:

Middleton said he was bent over in the car searching the interior for a loose cigarette when he heard a voice order him to, “Get your hands where I can see them.”

He said he initially thought it was a neighbor joking with him, but when he turned his head he saw deputies standing halfway down his driveway.

He said he backed out of the vehicle with his hands raised, but when he turned to face the deputies, they immediately opened fire.

“It was like a firing squad,” he said. “Bullets were flying everywhere.”

Middleton was struck with a bullet that shattered the bones in his left thigh, requiring the insertion of a metal rod.

The deputies responsible have been put on paid administrative leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates the incident.

Meanwhile, Middleton told the Pensacola New Journal from his hospital bed that he’s thankful he wasn’t shot in the head or chest, adding, “My mother’s car is full of bullet holes though. My wife had to go and get a rental.”

Gunshots struck both the car and the side of Middleton’s house. Neighbors estimated hearing more than seven shots fired and Middleton’s family found over 17 shell casings in the carport.

The ordeal was especially terrifying for Middleton’s elderly mother.

Ceola Walker, 77,   was sleeping inside when she awoke to gunshots. “(The deputies) told me to close the door and not come out. They called an ambulance for him,” she told the Journal.

Speaking with Fox 10, Walker said, “I don’t understand how they could fire so many shots at him. He wasn’t resisting or anything and he was at his own house,” adding, “He’s my only son and for that to happen was just devastating. We know it wasn’t anyone but God that saved him.”

At least one neighbor, a teenage girl who witnessed some of the confrontation, said that Middleton “wasn’t belligerent or anything.”

Despite nearly killing him, the sheriff’s office has yet to apologize or offer an explanation for their behavior, which Middleton is still baffled by. “Even if they thought the car was stolen, all they had to do was run the license plate. They would have seen that that car belonged there,” he told the Journal.

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This is the third story I’ve covered in the last four days involving the shooting of an unarmed African American (Lamont Earl Dukes in St. Louis, Marshall Coulter in New Orleans). Though each victim was shot in a different part of the country under very different circumstances, they share one very significant detail: they were all racially profiled, seen as threatening and criminal because of the color of their skin. This is of course nothing new but I’ve got to wonder:  What effect, if any, did Zimmerman’s ‘not guilty’ verdict have on the decision to shoot Dukes, Coulter and Middleton?