Florida Man Opens Fire At Woman, Her Son In Hotel Lobby Allegedly Over Social Distancing

A Florida man opened fire at a woman and her son inside a Miami Beach hotel Monday, July 27, because he was angry over their lack of social distancing.

The man, identified as 29-year-old Douglas Marks, confronted Veronica Pena and her son in the lobby of the Crystal Beach Suites in Miami Beach on Monday evening.

"You aren’t social distancing," Marks told the mother and son, the arrest affidavit seen by Local10 stated.

Pena, sitting on a couch with her son, ignored him and did not make a move.

Miami Beach police said that Pena then overheard Marks say, "Let me take care of them, I have two people not following directions" before he grabbed a gun and opened fire.

"The guy came and started shooting," a witness told WSVN. "The son and the mom were, like, crying, and they were scared."

Luckily no one was injured during the shooting incident.

"'Bam! Bam!' Real loud, loud. I just grabbed everybody and put them on the floor," another witness, Elio Rodriguez told the local news outlet. "I grabbed my daughter and everybody and put them on the floor."

Officers, responding to a 911 call, arrived at the hotel and found Marks wearing a mask and armed with the black pistol. He surrendered and was arrested without further incident.

Tourists were glad the chaos is over. "I mean, that could have been us," a tourist staying at the hotel told the outlet.

"Yeah, we could have been down there and got shot," another said.

A witness captured the arrest on camera. The video was later shared on Twitter by Sheldon Fox, a Miami based journalist.

Investigators said that Marks later confessed to the shooting alleging that he did so because someone was following him. He also claimed to have asked the front desk to call 911, before "subsequently firing four warning shots," Local10 reports.

Marks was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, use of a firearm to commit a felony and discharging a firearm in public. He was being held on an $11,000 bond.