Pattern or Panic? Why the Leto Shooting Could Turn on a 2023 Dog Case—and What Drejka Taught Us About Prior Acts

BY JEFFREY STRAUB Sponsored by 2A Self-Defense Law ⸻ Pattern or Panic? Why the Leto Shooting Could Turn on a 2023 Dog Case—and What Drejka Taught Us About Prior Acts The case of Charles Leto is already charged—with grief, outrage, and legal complexity. A 55-year-old Chicago Park District lifeguard, Leto shot three unarmed teenagers near Douglass Park Pool in June 2025. One teen, a 15-year-old boy, died. Another, 14, was critically wounded. The third escaped physical harm but is now a key witness. Leto claims self-defense. But now, just days after the incident, new information is surfacing. Back in 2023, Leto shot two dogs in Lakeview. One died. The other survived. Leto said he felt threatened. No charges were filed. The cases are two years apart—but the psychological and factual parallels are starting to look eerily familiar. And that raises the question: Can this prior incident come into court? Or is it off-limits, legally irrelevant, and prejudicial? To answer that, we need to revisit a controversial Florida case—and the rules that govern how much of your past can follow you into a courtroom. ⸻ Florida’s Drejka Case and the Legal Door It Opened In 2018, Florida man Michael Drejka shot and killed Markeis McGlockton in a parking lot dispute. Drejka claimed he feared for his life. Surveillance footage told a different story—showing McGlockton backing away before Drejka pulled the trigger. But what really tipped the scales at trial wasn’t just the video. It was Drejka’s past. Under Florida’s “Williams Rule” (section 90.404(2)(a)), the prosecution introduced prior incidents where Drejka had threatened others with a gun in road rage-type encounters. These weren’t just thrown in to paint him as a bad guy. They were used to establish his state of mind, show absence of mistake, and reveal a consistent pattern: Drejka escalated verbal confrontations into lethal threats over minor disputes. That’s where the Leto case is now headed. Because in federal courts and most states—including Illinois—Rule 404(b) allows prior bad acts to come in not to prove you’re a “bad person,” but to show motive, intent, mental state, absence of accident, or a common plan. So no, Leto’s dog-shooting history can’t be used just to say “look, he’s violent.” But it absolutely can be used to say, “look, this is how he responds to perceived threats.” And that changes everything. ⸻ Rule 404(b): Past Is Prologue—If It’s Relevant The legal rule is deceptively simple. You can’t introduce evidence of past acts just to show character or that someone has a tendency to do bad things. But you can introduce them to show: • Intent or motive • Absence of mistake • A common scheme or plan • State of mind (mens rea) Crucially, you don’t need a conviction. You don’t even need formal charges. If a prosecutor can prove the prior act by a preponderance of the evidence—more likely than not—and it’s relevant to an issue in the current case, it may come in. That’s what’s likely to happen here. Leto claims self-defense again, just like he did in the 2023 dog shooting. In both cases, he felt threatened. In both cases, the targets were unarmed. And in both, his response was lethal force. If the prosecution can argue that this shows a pattern—one that undermines his claim of reasonable fear—they don’t need to say he’s a violent person. They just need to say he’s someone with a history of interpreting low-level threats as justifications for deadly force. That’s not character evidence. That’s mindset. ⸻ The Video: What We See, What the Jury Might Feel Surveillance footage of the Douglass Park incident has been released by multiple news outlets and shared widely across YouTube. One video in particular captures the pivotal moment: Leto draws his weapon, the teens start to move away, and he fires. YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0L0VEvwSwc Here’s what stands out: • There’s no visible weapon on the teens. • There is movement, but no aggressive lunging or tackling. • Leto appears to initiate the final escalation. To a jury, that might not scream “imminent threat.” It might scream “snap decision.” That makes his mindset crucial—and that’s where the 2023 dog shooting comes back into play. Because if a jury hears that this isn’t the first time Leto perceived an ambiguous situation as life-threatening and responded with force, the defense starts to wobble. ⸻ The Balancing Test: Relevance vs. Prejudice Of course, courts don’t let everything in. Under Rule 403, the judge has to weigh the probative value of the prior act against its potential for unfair prejudice. It’s a tightrope. If the two incidents are highly similar in facts, response, and emotional framing—like Leto shooting unarmed victims in both cases while claiming fear—the prosecution has a strong argument that the dog case is more than just background noise. It’s pattern. If the defense tries to say Leto made a reflexive decision in the heat of the moment, then the prosecution can say: “Really? Because two years ago, same guy, same fear, same lethal choice.” It won’t convict him by itself. But it could tip a jury into doubting his credibility. And that’s often enough. ⸻ Why This Case Matters Beyond Leto This isn’t just about one man or one park. It’s about how our justice system handles people who claim self-defense while consistently putting themselves into escalating situations. It’s about the difference between “a mistake anyone could make” and “a mindset that keeps making the same mistake.” And it’s about the legal tools prosecutors have—like Rule 404(b)—to tell a fuller story, even when the defense tries to keep it narrow. In a time when cameras are everywhere, and self-defense claims are increasingly weaponized, the real question might not be “Was the fear real?” but “Was it reasonable?” When the answer to that turns on a prior shooting of two dogs, you begin to see just how fragile—and important—those lines are. ⸻ #SelfDefenseLaw #404bEvidence #LetoCase #MensReaMatters #PatternOfForce #ReasonableFearOrReflexiveFire #DrejkaDoctrine #2ASelfDefenseLaw ⸻ QUIZ ANSWER (If You Found the Hidden Message) If you took the first letter of every paragraph in the article (excluding headings and hashtags), you discovered the phrase: “Self-defense is not a license for fear-based violence.” Because that’s the real issue here—where does caution end and escalation begin? ⸻ Sponsored by 2A Self-Defense Law We don’t just teach the law. We teach how not to get it wrong. Let us help take the fear out of getting it wrong—before a jury decides if you did.