Landscaper shot by stray bullet from belt-fed machine gun during nearby Air Force exercise, lawsuit says

A South Florida landscaper was shot in the back by a stray bullet from a nearby police department gun range being used to familiarize a U.S. Air Force squadron with belt-fed machine guns and high-powered rifles used by foreign troops, according to a newly filed federal lawsuit reviewed by The Independent.

At the time, Neftali Madrid Paredes, 33, was clearing palm trees from a field he and his coworkers regularly maintained, the complaint states. It says they were accustomed to hearing gunshots from the adjacent Palm Bay police training facility, but had never before encountered any issues.

“On the day of the incident, however, [Madrid Paredes] and his coworkers could hear the shots coming from closer than they usually were,” the complaint contends. “Around noon, [Madrid Paredes] and his coworkers began to hear bullets fly over their heads and striking the surrounding palm trees.”

When it was time for his lunch break, Madrid Paredes climbed down from the excavator he was operating and sat down on the ground “when suddenly, he was struck in the back by a stray projectile,” according to the complaint.

Madrid Paredes was airlifted to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, Florida, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, authorities announced at the time, providing little detail other than noting that “the shooting did not involve any members of the Palm Bay Police Department.”

Madrid Paredes was never identified by name, and the circumstances of the shooting have not been previously reported.

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“He was lucky as hell that none of his critical organs were hit,” attorney Sadi Antonmattei-Goitia, who is representing Madrid Paredes, told The Independent.

Even though Madrid Paredes survived without grave injury, Antonmattei-Goitia said the whole episode has been “obviously a very bad experience” for his client.

On May 22, 2024, Madrid Paredes’s complaint says some 15 members of the 308th Rescue Squadron, an Air Force Reserve Command combat search and rescue unit out of Patrick Space Force Base, were participating in a weapons training session at the Palm Bay police’s 40-acre training facility known as “The Range.”

The 308th, which operates under the 920th Rescue Wing, is a highly specialized unit that, among other task, is used to retrieve returning astronauts after splashdown.

“As part of this training, Defendants Maxim Defense Industries and Redback One supplied firearms including AK-47s, FN FAL rifles, M110 rifles, and PKM fully automatic, belt-fed machine guns for use during an exercise,” according to the complaint, which was filed April 8 in Orlando federal court.

An instructor from Maxim Defense, a Minnesota-based gun manufacturer, ran the familiarization course alongside an instructor from Redback One, a “combat training systems” provider in Virginia founded by a former special operator with the Australian Defense Force, the complaint continues.

While the 308th was learning how to use the high-powered weapons, Madrid Paredes and his colleagues were felling palms nearby, the complaint goes on.

Lunchtime came, and Madrid Paredes found what he thought was a safe place to relax, the complaint states.

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However, it says, something was different this time. For starters, the shots seemed to be a lot closer than they normally were. Soon, rounds began to pepper trees in the field where Madrid Paredes and the others were, according to the complaint.

“Upon information and belief, during the course of this training exercise, multiple projectiles were fired over the berm [of the shooting range],” the complaint alleges.

That’s when the complaint says Madrid Paredes was shot in the back, without warning. He was hit with a .30-caliber round, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement incident report seen by The Independent.

A companion report from the Palm Bay police cites an interview with a member of the Air Force squadron who told investigators that the members had begun training on the 400-meter range at 10 a.m. At about 1:30 p.m., the range master called for a ceasefire, telling the group that “someone had been shot,” the report says.

The airman said that “he did not see anyone being reckless with the firearms and didn't notice if anyone shot to [sic] close to the top of the berm or hear of anyone noticing they shot over the berm,” according to the report. And although he said he hadn’t personally noticed any safety violations, the airman told cops that “he is willing to bet that if a round skipped over the berm,” it came from one of the machine guns being used.

The police report quotes one of the squadron members as telling investigators that none of them had ever before fired the guns they were getting acquainted with that day.

Doctors surgically removed the bullet from the rear of Madrid Paredes’s left shoulder, the incident report says. The bullet had come from one of two AK-47s the airmen were training with, according to the report.

“The stray bullet that struck [Madrid Paredes] was the foreseeable result of Defendants’ collective failure to conduct safe live-fire training operations at a range in close proximity to civilian workers,” the complaint states.

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Last year, a high school football coach in Philadelphia sued Abingdon Township and several police officers after he said he was struck in the arm by a stray bullet from an adjacent police department gun range while he was supervising a team practice.

Also, last year, a police detective in Tucson, Arizona, was placed on modified duty after a rifle round he fired during a training exercise hit a set of monkey bars at a nearby playground. No one was hit, according to reports.

Earlier this month, a deputy sheriff in Flagler County, Florida, was criminally charged after a shot he fired while taking target practice in his backyard hit an 11-year-old boy playing video games four houses away.

As far as Madrid Paredes’s case goes, individual members of the U.S. military cannot be sued for negligence if they are acting within the scope of their duty, attorney Greg Rinckey, founding partner of Tully Rinckey PLLC, told The Independent. Rinckey is not involved in the Madrid Paredes matter.

According to Madrid Paredes’s complaint, Maxim Defense Industries and Redback One “knew or should have known” that the range they were on was “inadequate to contain projectiles within its boundaries during live-fire operations involving military-grade weapons,” that civilian workers were present in the immediately adjacent field, and that the Air Force personnel firing the weapons “may not have been adequately qualified, trained, or competent” to safely use the firearms supplied to them that day.

Madrid Paredes himself, the complaint asserts, “did nothing to cause his damages.”

Maxim Defense Industries and Redback One did not respond on Monday to requests for comment. The Air Force is not listed as a defendant. Antonmattei-Goitia said he has filed an administrative claim against the service branch, which now has a period of several months to evaluate it. If the two sides cannot come to an agreement, Antonmattei-Goitia will then amend the complaint to include the Air Force, he explained.

Madrid Paredes’s complaint says he has endured physical pain and suffering, physical impairment and disfigurement and mental anguish.

He is now seeking actual and exemplary damages in an amount to be determined by a jury, plus pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, as well as court costs and attorneys’ fees.