COCONUT CREEK, Fla. – A Pompano Beach father, picking up his son from football practice at a local high school, is under arrest for having a gun on school grounds.
Terry Loray, 39, was arrested on Tuesday, a week after the incident. According to a deputy from BSO’s Community Involvement Unit, an altercation in the parking lot of Monarch High School on Tuesday, April 21, led to an investigation into Loray carrying the weapon.
As he bonded out of the Broward County Jail on Wednesday, Loray defended his actions, and those of his son.
“It was self defense,” he said. “My son did not bring a gun onto school grounds.”
According to the arrest report, Loray got in the middle of a fight on Tuesday, April 21, that had broken out after football practice. The deputy’s report said that on surveillance and from a video that was taken at the scene, “you can hear a kid say, ‘They got guns, bro.’ " Loray can also be seen stepping in between the subjects who were fighting, and, at one point, gestures to one of his sons to go to their parked car.
The deputy says the boy can be seen coming back to the fight holding what appears to be a firearm and begins pointing it a people. The report says the boy then looked like he loaded the firearm and began pointing it. “Several kids began to run in fear of being shot,” the report stated. It was then that Loray retrieved the weapon, according to the investigator.
The investigator says the surveillance video shows Loray carrying a Springfield .357 handgun by his side in his right hand while speaking to those who were fighting. He eventually returned to the car and left the scene, according to the investigator.
When he was arrested on Tuesday, April 27, he told deputies that when he saw the altercation break out, he said he had a firearm in his car and got it to protect his family from the other subjects there. He said his son had run back to the car to retrieve mace shaped like a gun.
His attorney said in court on Wednesday that Loray never motioned to the son to grab a firearm, just that the son brought it back.
“He motioned to his son to go to the car. The son comes to him with a firearm. He never said that he motioned to the son to grab a firearm . . . Obviously, the son was in fear. You could see the fear then. And then Mr. Loray retrieved the gun from his son and held it by his side,” said John A. James, an attorney for Loray.
Loray’s attorney said he never pointed the gun at anyone and everything was done in self defense.
He was charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Loray was given a $2,000 bond and was told he cannot possess any weapons or ammunition.