Lawyer, 33, is arrested for shooting man, 73, over 30 TIMES ‘Wild West-style’ after argument over a dog

A lawyer has been arrested after he allegedly shot and killed his 73-year-old neighbor following an argument over the victim’s unleashed dog.

Surveillance footage captured Luis França, 33, walking his own dog before he pulled out his gun and fired at Manoel de Oliveria, 73, outside their residential complex in the southeastern city of Vitória, Brazil, on Saturday.

Authorities said more than 30 shots were exchanged in the wild west-style shootout that unfolded after França confronted de Oliveria and his wife, Marília Pepino, in the courtyard because their pet Alaskan malamute did not have his leash and muzzle on.

Pepino told TV Vitória that her husband returned to their apartment to retrieve a gun and kept it in his waistband before França took his weapon out and began firing.

‘The discussion started here in the square. We were sitting, he (Luis) started insulting us,’ Pepino said. ‘My husband hadn’t said anything, nothing to him. Nothing! He was the one who started saying: ‘I already told you, old man, to you put a collar on that dog.”

The widow said she attempted to diffuse the situation by telling França to leave.

According to Pepino, França told her, ‘No! Let’s see who dies first, let’s see who gets a mouth full of ants’. 

Pepino said that França ‘fired the first show’ before de Oliveira drew his gun and responded with fire. 

The couple’s pet dog was wounded during the shootout. 

De Oliveira and his wife walked about one block before he collapsed to the ground. He was pronounced dead on the scene.  

França remained at the site of the crime and was placed under arrest after telling cops that de Oliveria had fired first.

‘I reacted, he took the gun and shot me, I reacted. Help me urgently for the love of God,’ França told an emergency operator in an audio of the recording obtained by Brazilian news outlet G1.

‘Vitória, Vitória, Vitória, for the love of God, girl. Vitória, Mata da Praia. Girl for the love of God … He came after me with a gun, I reacted and he died, for God’s sake, I’m asking for help!’

He made his first court appearance Sunday and was kept on pretrial detention due to the ‘extreme seriousness of the crime’ that occurred on a ‘public street with heavy pedestrian traffic.’

França’s attorney Leonardo Gagno said that he fired in defense and that he did not have the intention of shooting de Oliveira’s dog, according to Brazilian news outlet G1.

Gagno and the rest of the legal team were planning on asking the judge to release França from jail.

‘He (Manoel) is not a victim, he is an aggressor. My client acted in self-defense,’ Gagno said.

Eugênio Ricas, the Secretary of State for Public Security of Espírito Santo, released a video statement lamenting the shooting and indicating it could have been avoided had both men talked over their differences.

‘Normally I talk here about arrests of criminals, about police operations, but today I’m going to talk about the need for dialogue, the need for tolerance, to invest in the culture of peace,’ he said. 

‘Yesterday two men exchanged gunfire in Mata da Praia, it seems there were more of 30 shots, a western in the middle of Mata da Praia, and one of them ended up dying.

‘All this because of arguments over dog walking. In other words, a banal crime, a banal death and the result is that now two families are torn apart,’ Ricas added. 

‘One because they lost their loved one and the other because they now have one in their midst. a person who killed another person due to lack of dialogue. 

‘It is important that we invest more in tolerance, in dialogue, in the culture of peace. Only in this way will we be able to live in a more civilized society, in a society of peace and for our children, can walk peacefully without being afraid of leaving and not coming back.’