Deputy recovering after deadly confrontation with angry resident

INDIATLANTIC, Fla. (FOX 35 ORLANDO) - A Brevard County sheriff's deputy, who was shot in the line of duty on Tuesday evening, is pulling through.  The Brevard Sheriff’s Office says the man who shot him was mad about neighborhood cats.

On Avenida de la Vis, in the driveway of the victim’s house, there are bullet holes all over. Family members of the dead man were on scene on Wednesday, consoling each other, cleaning up blood and trying to block the cameras from recording in the area where tense words escalated to violence.

The windshield of a pick up truck has one bullet hole; there are signs of the shoot out everywhere in the front yard. As for the identity of the man who was killed and the deputy, the Sheriff's Office won’t release that information quite yet.

Pamela Leon lives near the deadly shooting scene where the Brevard deputy and the resident exchanged gunfire and to use the deputy’s own words "he won." That’s how Sheriff Wayne Ivy explained the situation late Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, Ms. Leon and other neighbors told us about an on-going dispute that put this in motion.

“Can you imagine, you’re an officer and you come for a call about cats and you get shot?” Leon asked.

The Sheriff's Office said the man who was killed was the one who called to complain. Neighbors said he was furious, because the man across the street puts out food for feral cat and the animals have been over-running the neighborhood.  Residents describe hearing yelling and screaming, then the guns going off after the deputy arrived.

The Sheriff's Office says a good Samaritan pulled the deputy out of the rifle fire, and from a position of cover, the deputy returned fire, killing the complainant.