A double shooting in East Arlington Thursday was the culmination of months of bad blood -- and could have been avoided, according to one of the victims.
Robert Bibeau says his neighbor, now charged with attempted murder, attacked him months ago and threatened his life, but police failed to act.
According to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, at about 2:40 p.m. Thursday, 33-year-old Stephen Holzbacher walked into Bibeau's garage and shot him and his son, Abraham.
"Unfortunately, it's not the first circumstance here," Bibeau told First Coast News.
Bibeau said he had a dispute with Holzbacher in early 2017 when their dogs were in a fight. In an animal control complaint, Bibeau provided, he alleged Holzbacher's dog attacked his dog causing injuries.
On March 24, 2018 he says he was backing out of his driveway when Holzbacher began pounding on his truck – calling him racial slurs and threatening to kill him.
Bibeau was fearful enough that he drove to the Regency Mall police substation for help. He says an officer did come out to his house but declined to write a report. Bibeau says the officer deemed it a “he said/he said” case and simply advised Bibeau to avoid his neighbor in the future.
"The police did zero, nothing," Bibeau said. "There is no police report because they won't take one."
Bibeau went to the substation Friday to see if there were any records at all of his complaints. He says he was told no records exist – exactly what he’d feared.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office also found no report from the incident. A spokesperson says since Biebau's comments appear to be a complaint against a JSO employee, they have passed the information to the Internal Affairs Unit.
Police did record a report a month later at Holzbacher's home. According to an April 5th JSO report, Holzbacher's father accused his son of punching him in the face with a closed fist. The father told police Holzbacher had been having mood swings. State prosecutors later dropped the April battery charges.
Bibeau said more should have been done in the months before Holzbacher's violence escalated to a shooting that could have killed Bibeau's family.
"I was hoping they would at least take a report, talk to his dad and get something done for the kid, because apparently there's a problem somewhere," Bibeau said. "I know they got a hard job but you got to ... make sure you have documentation. Without that, nobody has proof of anything."