A 59-year-old gate attendant at a gated Ormond Beach retirement community is behind bars without bond after firing several rounds into the ground near a man who had come looking for his girlfriend early Tuesday morning. Police say Gary Nagel pulled a handgun during a confrontation at the community's entrance and kept firing even as the man ran down the street to get away. No one was hurt in the encounter, but Nagel now faces a felony charge that could carry years in prison.
According to WKMG ClickOrlando, the shooting happened around 7:45 a.m. at 100 Merimont Lane, the entrance to Plantation Oaks of Ormond Beach. Investigators say the confrontation began when the man exchanged words with Nagel and tried to explain why he was in the neighborhood: he was searching for his girlfriend, 24-year-old Autumn Sollitto. The gate attendant told him to leave the area, and the man reportedly headed down Plantation Oaks Boulevard toward Merimont Lane before Nagel drew the weapon.
A DUI Crash Set the Morning in Motion
The gate confrontation didn't happen in isolation. Investigators tied the shooting directly to a DUI crash roughly two hours earlier, at around 6 a.m., at 1502 Fountain View Street, where police arrested Sollitto after identifying her as the driver involved in the collision, per the Ormond Beach Observer. That address sits on a residential subdivision adjacent to the Plantation Oaks development, according to real estate records. Sollitto's boyfriend appears to have gone looking for her in the surrounding neighborhood not long after her arrest, which is what put him at the community's gatehouse less than two hours later.
Plantation Oaks of Ormond Beach is a 233-acre gated 55+ retirement community with 427 home sites off Plantation Oaks Boulevard near the Scenic Loop, according to property listing records. The development's controlled-access entry gates are exactly the kind of checkpoint Nagel was staffing when the man arrived asking about Sollitto.
Warning Shots, Felony Charges
Nagel was jailed after firing warning shots at the man, according to police, and the station's report indicates he continued firing several rounds into the ground near him even as the man ran. He's now charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, along with discharging a firearm in public, and is being held without bond.
The distinction matters legally. Under Florida Statute 784.021, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in state prison, five years of probation, and a $5,000 fine, according to Hanlon Law. Separately, Florida Statute 790.15 makes it a first-degree misdemeanor to knowingly discharge a firearm in a public place or over occupied residential property, carrying up to a year in county jail and a $1,000 fine, per the Sammis Law Firm.
Firing so-called warning shots into the ground near someone doesn't automatically protect a shooter from felony liability. As The Hoffman Firm explains, Florida law only recognizes self-defense under Statute 776.012 when a shooter can show an imminent threat of great bodily harm — a bar that isn't cleared simply because a pedestrian was told to leave and didn't immediately comply.
A Prior Arrest and an Ongoing Investigation
Sollitto has a prior brush with law enforcement of her own. Volusia County booking records show she was previously arrested in January 2025 by the Holly Hill Police Department on a charge of threatening a public official, according to Daytona Mugshots. Following his arrest Tuesday, Nagel was processed into the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach, the same booking database shows.
The Ormond Beach Police Department, a state-accredited municipal agency operating on roughly a $10 million annual budget in northern Volusia County, is leading both the DUI and shooting investigations. It remains unclear whether Nagel was employed directly by the neighborhood's homeowners association or by a third-party security contractor, and whether he held a valid Florida concealed weapon license — details that were not addressed in the police release. What charges, if any, the State Attorney's Office in the Seventh Judicial Circuit ultimately pursues at formal arraignment also remains to be seen.
