A small Lake County business planned a community fundraiser as police continued searching for the driver in the case.
MASCOTTE, Fla. — A Mascotte tire shop is grieving the loss of longtime employee Ashley Tyer after a payment dispute with a customer escalated into a roadside incident that coworkers say ended with her being thrown from a fleeing vehicle.
The story has moved from a workplace emergency to a community tragedy, with one local outlet reporting that Tyer died after being taken off life support. Her death has intensified calls for an arrest and turned a small business on West Myers Boulevard into a gathering point for mourning, remembrance and demands for accountability. As police continue investigating, coworkers and the shop owner have focused on the life Tyer built there over seven years and the sudden way it was cut short.
Coworkers said the confrontation began when a customer disputed payment after used tires were installed on a vehicle at Just Stop Tires. James Kelly, a friend and coworker, said the job was supposed to cost $95, but the customer did not want to pay as expected. Kelly said the man lowered the vehicle off the jack and got behind the wheel before staff could complete the transaction. Kelly told reporters the vehicle pulled away from the shop, stalled briefly, and then lurched back into motion. He said Tyer stood in front of the vehicle to stop it from leaving and ended up on the hood as the driver accelerated away from the business and onto the road.
Kelly said the driver kept going for roughly half a block before turning, and Tyer was thrown from the vehicle. Another report said surveillance video captured the chaos and showed the driver nearly striking another employee while speeding off. In the first round of coverage, Tyer was described as being on life support with severe injuries. In a later update, ClickOrlando reported that shop owner Roy Cruz confirmed she died overnight after being taken off life support. That update shifted the public understanding of the case from a desperate medical emergency to a death investigation, though police had still not announced an arrest in the coverage available by Monday.
Those who knew Tyer described her with a mix of affection and admiration that suggested she held the shop together in ways customers may never have noticed. Cruz called her the heart of the company. Kelly said she was “tougher than nails” and said she could outwork most men. He also described her as both tender and fearless, a woman who brought warmth to the business while handling hard physical work every day. Coworkers said she cared deeply about the shop, and one small detail has become part of her memorial: an old tire outside the building that she had started painting and converting into a flower bed. Kelly said he planned to finish it in her honor.
The response around the shop quickly widened beyond grief. According to local reporting, the business planned a barbecue benefit for Saturday, March 28, at 1 p.m. at the shop, and Tyer’s family set up a fundraiser to help with expenses. Those steps show how small businesses and neighborhoods often react after public violence: by turning the scene of the event into a place of support. They also underscore the personal cost of the case. What began as an argument over less than $100 ended with a funeral, a community fundraiser and a police search that had not produced a public arrest announcement in the reports reviewed.
Several important questions remain unanswered. Authorities had not publicly identified the driver in the available coverage, and police had not laid out a full timeline of investigative steps. It was not clear whether detectives had recovered the vehicle, whether a warrant had been issued, or which criminal counts prosecutors could eventually pursue. Depending on the evidence, the case could involve allegations tied to theft, leaving the scene, reckless driving or homicide-related charges. Those decisions usually depend on witness statements, video review, forensic evidence and the sequence of contact between the victim and the vehicle. Until police release more, much of the legal path ahead remains unknown.
What is clear is the way Tyer’s death landed in Mascotte. The details that coworkers shared were ordinary and devastating at the same time: a tire job, a price dispute, a worker trying to stop someone from leaving, then a terrible silence where a familiar voice used to be. Kelly said he keeps replaying the look on her face and the helplessness he felt in those first moments after she fell. His comments turned the story from a police brief into something more intimate, a portrait of a workplace trying to understand how routine labor became irreversible loss.
As of the latest published updates, the shop was preparing to honor Tyer publicly on March 28 while police continued trying to identify and arrest the driver. The next milestone in the case is expected to come from investigators, either through a suspect announcement or a fuller statement on how the fatal encounter unfolded.
Author note: Last updated March 23, 2026.