Man who made bomb threat, fatally shot self near Tampa FDOT building was upset engineer
The man who fatally shot himself after calling in a bomb threat to the state transportation agency’s Tampa headquarters last week was an engineering consultant who had a very public disagreement with agency officials last year.
Greg Parsons, whom authorities have identified as the man in the deadly incident, took to public meetings, YouTube and his website, where he railed against local officials who passed over his submission for a project to unclog congestion at the intersection of U.S. 41 and State Road 54 in Land O’ Lakes.
In online posts, Parsons, 61, lamented the money he said he had lost when his design wasn’t chosen by Pasco leaders and leveled claims of corruption against them.
On April 17, he parked his blue SUV in the lot outside the state transportation department’s building on McKinley Drive and told staff he had a bomb.
When police approached the vehicle, Parsons put a gun to his head and shot himself as officers tried to talk to him, according to a news release from the Tampa Police Department.
Florida Department of Transportation and Florida Highway Patrol staff were evacuated from their offices, and McKinley Drive was closed to traffic that night as police investigated.
The Tampa police bomb team was dispatched after “suspicious items, including wires, were observed in the car,” a news release states. Officers found two firearms, multiple high-capacity magazines and multiple containers of gasoline.
In February 2023, Parsons was removed from a Pasco County transportation planning board meeting after interrupting board members, the Tampa Bay Times previously reported.
After the meeting, Florida District 7 Department of Transportation Secretary David Gwynn told the board that he expected Parsons wouldn’t be happy that his design wasn’t chosen. He said that though Parsons was “a smart guy,” it was unclear how his project would work.
Officials said one reason Parsons’ intersection design was not chosen was because it has not been built anywhere else. Gwynn said it included confusing movements and could have “failed spectacularly.”
In the months following that meeting, Parsons posted frequently to his YouTube channel, where he defended his idea and accused local officials of “unlawful misconduct.” His account hosts nearly 50 videos, which range in length from a couple of minutes to nearly two hours.
“Corruption and malfeasance of the Florida Department of Transportation District 7 and Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization will cost me and my family $57 million, the taxpayers over $60 million and the public $5+ billion in excess delay and fuel consumption over the next 50+ years,” his website states.
Parsons worked as a transportation engineering consultant in Jacksonville, according to the website.
The state transportation agency declined to comment on the incident in an email to the Times.
“FDOT’s utmost gratitude goes out to all first responders, including our law enforcement personnel ... whose quick actions kept our team safe and contained the incident,” spokesperson Michael Williams wrote.
Need help?
Contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org, or call the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay by dialing 2-1-1.
Times staff writer Tony Marrero contributed to this report.
