A Florida woman who supposedly couldn’t let her adult son have the last word in an argument over her cellphone was arrested Saturday after allegedly firing a gun at him while he rode away on a bicycle.
Priscilla Ann Ethridge, 66, was charged with aggravated assault with a firearm and held at the Bay County Jail on $2,500 bail, the Panama City News Herald reported.
Ethridge and her 46-year-old son, who lived together, were in the middle of an argument when he abruptly rode away from the Panama City Beach home on his bicycle, according to a police report.
Angry mom attempts drive-by shooting on adult son after argument https://t.co/uS6IrzaAZA
— The News Herald (@The_News_Herald) June 18, 2018
The mother grabbed a .22-caliber handgun before heading out the door after him and saying: “I’ll be damned if I let him have the last word,” her nephew told Bay County Sheriff’s Office deputies. After getting in her car and catching up to him, she allegedly fired one shot, police said.
Ethridge claimed her son stole her cellphone and wouldn’t give it back, prompting her to chase him down. When she caught up to the bicycle, he grabbed the car door before she fired the shot to “scare” him into letting go, the report said.
Ethridge’s son told deputies a different story: that he was riding to get away from his mother when she rode up next to him, yelled she was going to shoot him and fired the revolver. The bullet didn’t strike anyone and the son was unharmed.
Investigators took Ethridge’s gun, which had one spent shell casing in its chamber. Her cellphone was later found at her home.
