PALM COAST, Fla. – The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man Saturday after he pointed a gun at a woman he accused of backing into his driveway.
It happened on Wood Ash Lane in Palm Coast.
Terry Lee Vetsch, 60, told police he was sitting in his home office when he saw a car backing into his driveway. That’s when he said he went into his bedroom, grabbed his gun and approached the SUV.
The encounter was captured on Vetsch’s home surveillance.
The video shows him as he walks across the street and slaps the back widow of the SUV then walks up to the driver-side window and yells “Keep your piece of s*** out of my f****ing driveway!”
In the video you see a woman walk down from the front door and she asked what was going on.
That’s when the two of them start to argue and curse at each other.
The woman walks across the street toward Vetsch’s home, and that’s when he pulls out a gun and points it at her while walking toward her. She freezes, then Vetsch lowers the gun and briefly walks away.
He then yells for someone in his home to call the police.
“It was horrifying. It was scary. It was over the top,” said News4Jax Crime and Safety Analyst Lakesha Burton. “I think that this demonstrates that just because you’re a lawful gun owner, doesn’t mean you need to carry a gun. His actions were very unreasonable. And thank God, there wasn’t a murder that occurred.”
News4Jax also requested the 911 call from the incident.
Here’s what Vetsch told the dispatcher:
Vetsch: “This woman came at me in my f*****g driveway threatening me.”
Dispatcher: “Ok. Do you know who she is?”
Vetsch: “I don’t know who she is. The neighbor across the street is -------. He’s (got) a pending drug charge right now for trafficking fentanyl. They’ve been doing drugs. The woman came at me. I pulled a gun out because she’s f*****g coming at me.”
The Sheriff’s Office also shared the body camera video from when deputies arrived.
Deputy: “So you tell me what happened from your point of view.”
Vetsch: “I have my Nest display on my computer, up on my computer. And I’m watching and I saw them pulling into the driveway.”
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Vetsch: “So I went over and I was going to tell them stay the hell out of my driveway. They’ve been told this before. I didn’t realize it was a different car because a white Ford Edge is a white Ford Edge and I didn’t realize it was a different car. The guy is still sitting in the car, I slap the back of it because I didn’t want to come up on the guy because like I said Jason realized that he’s pending charges for trafficking fentanyl right now from back in November. There’s people coming and going from in that house all hours of the night every night. Different cars and so on and so forth.”
Deputy: “Sir, I understand but I need to know what happened.”
Vetsch: “So, I holler at the guy and said stay the hell off my property.”
Deputy: “Was he still on your property?”
Vetsch: “He was in the vehicle right where it is right now.”
Deputy: “Ok.”
Vetsch: ”And then she came out of the house coming at me all the way and I’m back into my driveway and she’s coming into my yard in my face and in a threatening manner and I’m like I’m not going to deal with this shit. I don’t come out here, I got a revolver. And it’s sitting in there it’s (inaudible) where it is right now. And I put it in my pocket before I walked out and she came up into my face and I pulled it out. I said back away stay the hell away from me.”
Deputy: Is that on video? On your camera?
Vetsch: That’s what I’m trying to get right here.
Deputies arrested Vetsch and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
According to the arrest report, the bullets were outside of the gun, but Vetsch admitted to pulling the hammer back and pointing it at her head. It also notes how he pulled the gun on her before she was on his property.
It wasn’t heard on the video received by News4JAX, but the report said Vetsch “intentionally and unlawfully verbally threatened (her) by stating that he was going to kill (her) at the same time Vetsch pointed a deadly weapon toward (her) head, creating imminent fear.”
Burton said it’s safest if people try to de-escalate situations or not even engage.
“We’re living in a different world now. You never know people’s mental state. And you never know if they have a weapon or not. In this case, this individual pulled out a weapon pretty early on in his computation. And the victim in this case, you know, continued to engage in this confrontation and this could have been deadly over something as simple as pulling in the wrong driveway,” said Burton.
Flager County Sheriff Rick Staly sent News4JAX a statement about the incident: “Unfortunately, this is how someone’s anger over a small issue could have turned deadly. It is important for everyone to remember to control their anger so that issues such as this don’t occur.”