A Florida woman has been arrested for allegedly holding two children at gunpoint for fishing in her backyard and threatening to “blow their heads off.”
Donna Elkins, 59, was arrested on two counts of aggravated assault and false imprisonment after the incident on Friday.
According to ClickOrlando.com, deputies with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office responded to the woman’s home after Elkins called 911 to report two teenage boys had been fishing in her backyard.
She told the dispatch officer she had “petrified” the children and they were lying on the ground after she had stopped them.
She allegedly walked into her backyard with a pellet gun to scare the 15-year-old and 13-year-old, police said.
The boys told deputies the woman threatened them after she caught them fishing in a pond behind her home.
“The victims stated that they feared for their life and believed that violence was about to take place,” police wrote in court filings. The woman “ordered the victims onto the ground and stated they could not leave.”
The boys were forced to lie on the ground for five minutes before the woman’s husband came home and disarmed her. Nearby witnesses corroborated police information.
In the end, investigators determined the teenagers had not been playing on the woman’s property but rather on a peninsula located near a pond on land owned by Baytree Development District, a local government entity. The land was approximately 30 feet away from the woman’s property line.
The outlet obtained footage of the incident from one of the teenagers’ fathers.
In it, the woman can be heard telling the boys if someone goes into their backyard, “you can blow their (expletive) heads off.”
She continues: “I have a right to protect my property and my house.”
After Elkins was arrested, officials released her on $25,000 bond.
