Guitarist Phil Fasciana of long-running Florida death metallers MALEVOLENT CREATION — who was allegedly involved in a bizarre shootout at a convenient store in his hometown of Ft. Lauderdale on July 3, 2009 — has released the following statement to BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

"Due to the ridiculous amounts of e-mails, MySpace messages, text messages and phone calls concerning my misfortune a few days ago which resulted in someone dying, I need to straighten a few things out that have been taken out of context and are wrong about the story.

"When I walked into that store to buy something, I had no idea the store was in the middle of being robbed. I immediately felt something was wrong when I walked in, because it was very quiet and the man working behind the counter was staring at me like I was gonna rob the store. When that 80-pound homeless crackhead yelled at me and pointed his gun at me and fired four shots at me, I thought I was surely dead and had no time to react! After realizing I was not hit, I slowly crawled around to the back of the store, and while the gunman was screaming at the worker, I ran down the isle he was in and tackled him with the intention of beating the living shit out of him. I did not try approaching this man and try reasoning with him and take the gun from his hands like it was reported on Blabbermouth the other day. The guy already shot at me four times and surely would have shot at me again if he knew I was still alive and I'm not retarded enough to think I could talk my way out of that kind of situation.

"When I tackled him and starting beating the shit out of him with the dude working there, he dropped the gun and I grabbed it. I had no intention of shooting him until he reached for another gun in his sneaker and looked at me, and before he got the chance to shoot at me again, that's when I shot him in the face two times and put an end to that whole nightmare!

"By no means am I a hero. I could have easily just ran out of the store like a pussy after realizing I was not shot and left the store worker to most likely get killed, but I was so pissed I just wanted to beat the fuck out of that loser who just tried to end my life over nothing. Anyone in my situation may have done the same thing, but nobody knows when something like that could happen to yourself or how to react just like me.

"The gunman was a homeless crackhead who was living somewhere behind the plaza the store was in and has apparently been a problem for a long time, and to this day, the police still cannot identify the man because he has no identification and nobody will come forward and tell the police who he is.

"I have a lot of personal family problems that are far worse then what I just went through and asked the police if it was possible to keep this story from getting in the press and having my dying father and grandfather have to know about something like that happening to me.

"As for the idiots who are calling me a murderer and other ridiculous things, [you] can FUCK OFF!!!! I didn't want this to happen to me and I surely did not wake up that day knowing I was going to kill someone trying to defend myself over a fucking chocolate milk I wanted to buy from a store!

"I would appreciate some alone time and for this whole thing to blow over and stop making a big deal about what happened to me, if at all possible. Let some crackhead who is foaming at the mouth point a 45 gun at you and start shooting at you and try to imagine what you would do. You don't think I was scared? I just couldn't believe he didn't hit me with at least one of the four bullets he fired directly at me.

"Needless to say, it's over and done with and cannot be taken back, and I will have to live with that image in my head for the rest of my life, but at least I am alive and can get back on tour with my band MALEVOLENT CREATION for our Mexico, South American and European tours starting in a few weeks. Hopefully that will keep my mind off all the negative shit that is surrounding me."