'We just got shot at': Instacart driver escapes gunfire after turning into wrong address

A South Florida man shot at a car that drove onto his property after the driver got lost trying to drop off an Instacart order, police said, leaving the car with bullet holes and a flat tire.

The shooter, a Broward County homeowner, told police he opened fire because the vehicle ran over his foot.

No one was struck by gunfire in the April 15 shooting, but a state prosecutor has ordered an investigation into the incident – the latest in a spate of similar shootings across the nation in which people have accidently turned onto the wrong property or gotten in the wrong vehicle. In one case, a 20-year-old woman was fatally shot after the vehicle she was in took a wrong turn into an upstate New York driveway.

Broward County State Attorney Harold Pryor issued a statement saying investigators never contacted his office about the shooting in Southwest Ranches, about 30 miles northwest of Miami.

Pryor said his staff members were unaware of the melee until they were contacted Friday by a reporter from WTVJ-TV, who interviewed the couple. Pryor said his office will decide whether charges should be filed.

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Two bullet holes and a flat tire

According to a Davie Police Department report, the shooting put at least two bullets into the car driven by 19-year-old Waldes Thomas Jr. His 18-year-old girlfriend, Diamond Darville, was with him in the car during the shooting. 

On Monday, Davie police Sgt. Kelvin Urbaez declined to comment to USA TODAY about the case, but released the lead detective's report. In it, he wrote that without any video, he could not determine whether the shooter or couple, if either of them, committed a crime.

“Each party appeared justified in their actions based on the circumstances they perceived,” a portion of the 7-page report reads.

USA TODAY is not naming the 30-year-old homeowner because he had not been charged with a crime as of Monday.

An unlit street in a semi-rural neighborhood

The 10 p.m. shooting happened on an unlit street in a semi-rural neighborhood at a home sitting on two acres.

According to the police report, Thomas got lost while delivering groceries for Instacart. The couple was on the phone with their customer when Thomas turned the 2014 Honda Civic he drove into an area where the shooter stores equipment for his excavation business. The address they were looking for was across the street.

The homeowner told officers he asked his 12-year-old son to tell the driver to leave but soon heard the boy cry for help. His father said he saw the car driving erratically, banging into logs and boulders, and told his son to run.

The car, he said, then drove toward him and ran over his foot. Fearing for his life and that of his son's, the homeowner said he pulled out his handgun and fired at the car's tires, but it sped away. He called police.

'We just got shot at'

When an officer found Thomas' vehicle nearby and the couple told him, “We just got shot at.”  The officer also wrote Darville was crying and Thomas appeared “extremely nervous and scared.”

Police found two bullet holes in the car's bumper and said one tire was flat.

The couple told the officer they tried to leave after the boy told them they were are the wrong home. Thomas said when he put the car into reverse and hit a boulder, the shooter approached “aggressively." Thomas said he heard shots and drove away. His girlfriend told police said she saw the shooter pull his gun and fire.

Police say they returned the shooter's gun to him after closing the case.

Contributing: Associated Press.

Natalie Neysa Alund covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.