Following a confrontation with a black landscaper who was obstructing his driveway, the owner of a Florida construction firm may now be charged after pulling out an assault weapon.
Jeremy Lee, 46, of J&S Outdoor Maintenance, was working on a neighbor’s lawn when David Berry, 44, stormed down his driveway brandishing an assault weapon and yelling at him for partially obstructing his road with a trailer ramp. The confrontation was captured on shocking footage.
‘This is is my property,’ Berry, of Fat Finger Construction, yells while armed after Lee’s vehicle has already been moved.
‘You’re not allowed to block my driveway. Don’t be a p***k.’
Clearwater Police said it will be presenting the case to the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office on possible charges of aggravated assault with a firearm against Berry, WFLA reported.
The incident, which happened on Thursday after the father-and-daughter team arrived to perform some yardwork on Boylan Avenue in Clearwater, shocked both Lee and his daughter Carrie, 22, who captured the meeting.
Lee said that Berry had exited his home in a rage because the trailer ramp was obstructing a portion of his driveway.
‘I immediately moved,’ Lee told WFLA. ‘I stopped what I was doing and I moved up, and like I said, just wasn’t good enough for him and I apologised to him.’
Lee claimed that Berry had returned with a weapon in hand while his daughter took out her phone to film the tense scene.
‘You think I’m playing,’ Berry yelled at them. ‘Punk ass. You’re daughter better take record of how stupid her father is.’
‘Keep recording,’ he then warned Carrie. ‘If it goes online, your a** will be sued, too.’
‘I’ll blast your f**king head off because you’re a dumba***,’ Berry added by the end of the video.’
Lee, who called Berry a ‘dumb motherf****r’ for pointing the gun at him, said he was worried for his daughter’s safety.
‘I was stunned,’ Lee said. ‘I think I said, ‘You’re going to kill me in front of my daughter?’
Carrie told WFLA that she also feared the worst.
‘I thought he was going to take my dad’s life, honestly,’ she said. ‘Then I was like, ‘Well, if you take his, he’s probably going to take mine.”
Lee said he and his daughter then called for Clearwater Police, who condemned the incident.
‘The bottom line is a dispute over parking should never have escalated to something like this,’ Clearwater Police Chief Dan Slaughter said in a statement.
‘If you have a problem with someone partially blocking the driveway, you call the police. You don’t grab a gun like some vigilante.’
Berry has had prior accusations of violence, burglary, and petty theft, all of which were later reduced to misdemeanours, according to Pinellas County Court records, so this is not his first run-in with the police.
Lee has requested that Berry’s firearms be seized by the police in light of his prior accusations and his rage during their altercation.
Lee told WFLA, “I don’t think he ought to have the right to bear arms.”
He stated that other members of his family will speak with his city council members later this month to advocate for changes to the laws governing guns.