Two men were taken to the hospital and later arrested after a machete fight in a Publix parking lot in Panama City on Tuesday. The Washington Sheriff’s Office said Everette Krichbabum and James Tristian Gay were arrested after the confrontation, and both now face aggravated battery with a deadly weapon charges.
That is the reason the case is drawing attention now: a parking lot argument turned into a weapons fight fast enough to send both men for treatment before the arrests followed. Panama City Police said the dispute began as a verbal argument and escalated into a physical fight, with both men allegedly armed with fixed-blade weapons.
Investigators said Gay, 35, was the primary aggressor. Witnesses told investigators Krichbabum was in his car when Gay drove up and stopped near him. Gay admitted he intentionally stopped to confront Krichbabum over alleged prior harassment, then got out and argued with him. The search for that earlier harassment is part of what makes the case linger, because the quarrel was not random from Gay’s own account, but something he said he came looking to settle.
Gay said he went back to his car after the verbal exchange and grabbed a machete after seeing Krichbabum holding a hatchet. Krichbabum said he felt threatened because of his age and his inability to physically defend himself, and said he flashed the hatchet to deter Gay. When Gay came at him with the machete, Krichbabum allegedly grabbed a knife that remained in its sheath. The affidavit says Gay hit Krichbabum in the face with the machete while it was still sheathed, setting off a struggle over both weapons.
Both men received injuries to their hands, while Krichbabum said Gay struck him in the head and left him unconscious. Gay also admitted to stomping Krichbabum while he was on the ground. His statement that he had the chance to leave but stayed out of personal pride sits uneasily beside investigators’ view that he was the primary aggressor. That is the part now left hanging: what, exactly, he said Krichbabum had done before Tuesday to make him stop and confront him in the first place.
For now, the case has moved from a parking lot fight to a felony charge on both sides. The men were treated, arrested and charged, but the account that may matter most next is the one Gay used to explain why he did not walk away when he says he could have.
