The Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office confirms that the gun a crazed man was holding when he charged at deputies called to his Tampa apartment overnight was really a BB pistol.
Deputies say they believed it was a semi-automatic and so they opened fire, killing 27 year old Jeffery Casale.
Neighbors say Casale was an ex-Marine who served in Afghanistan and that he had mental problems.
Authorities were called when he began waving the gun around outside his Swallowtail Court apartment and yelling about someone trying to get into his unit.
He told deputies he knew they wanted to kill him and to do ahead.
