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Sister of man killed in alleged road rage incident in Orlando speaks exclusively with FOX 35

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Published  December 5, 2024 6:44pm EST
Crime and Public Safety
FOX 35 Orlando

Sister of man killed in road rage incident speaks

FOX 35 News is learning more about a road rage incident that left a man dead on Monday, which happened in broad daylight on a busy Orlando road.

ORLANDO, Fla. - FOX 35 News is learning more about what authorities are calling a deadly road rage incident that happened in broad daylight on a busy Orlando road on Monday.

Daniela Cvetkova said the shooting didn’t just take the life of her brother, Mihail Tsvetkov, but now his family feels like their lives are destroyed as well. 

"This has taken…everything," she told FOX 35 Reporter Marie Edinger.

Mihail Tsvetkov was a professor. He had a Ph.D. in German linguistics and had just accepted a position with a university in Illinois, where his family is. He was less than two weeks away from moving back when Orlando Police said he was killed in a road rage incident on Colonial Drive.

"My mother's scream will stay with me for the rest of my life," said Cvetkova. "When she found out, it was just unbearable."

Orlando Police said things started with a woman tailgating Tsvetkov. He reportedly got out of the car to talk to her, but witnesses told FOX 35 he was acting calmly, not shouting or anything.  Then, according to police, the woman pulled out her gun and shot him.

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"You can move your car, you can run over him. You can shoot him in the arm and the torso anywhere else. Move away. Drive away. Why do you have to pull your gun and shoot him in the face?" said Cvetkova. "That is the part that is really very, very hard to process for us."

Police are still investigating the incident and haven’t filed charges yet, or released the name of the woman they say pulled the trigger.

Investigators will have to determine whether there’s any plausibility behind a self-defense claim. 

"He had a heart as big as the world. He was so kind," said Cvetkova. "So I have a really hard time believing that he was involved in any type of altercation that could have been potentially dangerous to anyone's life."

The family says they do want to see the shooter prosecuted.

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