A dispatcher with Marion County Public Safety was arrested Wednesday after getting into a violent confrontation with her neighbor.
Deloris Louise Griggs, 26, of Ocklawaha, was taken into custody and charged with domestic battery after a Marion County Sheriff’s deputy was called to a home in the 16600 block of SE 95th Street Road.
According to a sheriff’s office report, a neighbor told the deputy that she invited Griggs’ four-year-old daughter to her house to play with other children when she discovered the child wasn’t being supervised. The neighbor said Griggs had recently gotten home from working a night shift and was sleeping.
Later, the neighbor said, Griggs’ husband came to get his daughter and “became irate and began to scream and yell.” The neighbor said she told him to go get Griggs because she wasn’t letting the child go with him because of his temper.
The husband left and a short time later, Griggs came to the neighbor’s house to pick up her daughter. Griggs also started to “scream and yell” at the neighbor before grabbing her daughter to leave, the report states.
But before leaving the house, Griggs punched her with a closed fist several times in the back of the head and around her right shoulder blade, the report says, adding that Griggs continued to scream and yell as she left the residence.
According to the report, the deputy noticed red bruising on the neighbor’s shoulder blade, which was consistent with what she had told him earlier.
The deputy also said he spoke with an eye witness and Griggs’ father, who both corroborated the victim’s story.
Griggs claimed that her neighbor “got into her face screaming and yelling at her” when she went to pick up her daughter. She told the deputy she pushed the neighbor “in the face region” and walked out of the residence. She also denied ever striking her neighbor with a closed fist, the report says.
Griggs was arrested and transported to the Marion County Jail. She was later released on $1,000 bond and is to appear in a Marion County courtroom June 27 at 1 p.m.
Marion County deputies also arrested Griggs on May 8, 2013 and May 21, 2012 on domestic battery charges, but court records show that both cases were either dropped or abandoned by prosecutors.