Marion County sheriff’s deputies were called to an Ocala home Sunday afternoon after a 14-year-old was pepper-sprayed in the face.
When deputies arrived at the house on Juniper Pass Course, they made contact with the teenager, who said he was in a confrontation with a man when 35-year-old Amanda Jean Frady pepper-sprayed him. The juvenile, who is a seventh-grader at Belleview Middle School, said he and the man, who is Frady’s fiancé, continued to argue in the middle of the street and things became more confrontational.
The teenager told deputies that as he and the man “were standing chest to chest” with each other, Frady punched him in the side of the head. He said he then pushed her to the ground before the altercation ended and deputies arrived, a sheriff’s office report states.
The man, who had “multiple red hand prints and scratches on the front of his chest and his back,” told deputies he had been outside working on his truck when the teenager started “taunting him over and over.” The man said he finally went to the end of his driveway and said, “If you have a problem, just come over and deal with it.”
The man said the teenager then walked across the street and shoved him, knocking him off balance, before returning to his own yard. The man said he turned to walk away as Frady came outside and saw the teenager running back across the road with a large section of bamboo with screws sticking out of it. The man said both he and Frady were afraid that he was going to harm them, so she used the pepper spray to stop him, the report says.
Frady, who has been in the Marion County Jail five times since March 2003, confirmed using the pepper spray on the juvenile because he was approaching her fiancé with the makeshift weapon, the report says. After being read her rights, she told a deputy that “she was fed up with the entire situation.” She admitted taking the “free shot punch” at the teenager but said she didn’t make contact.
Deputies noted that a video recording of the incident showed the juvenile aggressively approaching the man with the weapon, at which point Frady can be seen pepper-spraying him, the report says, adding that the video also showed her hitting him.
Frady was taken into custody and booked into the Marion County Jail at 4:49 p.m., where she was charged with cruelty toward a child (abuse without great bodily harm). She was released about four hours later on $2,000 bond.
The teenager, who kept saying to deputies, “She sprayed me, she sprayed me,” was taken to Florida Hospital Ocala for treatment from being exposed to pepper spray. He was placed under arrest and after being cleared by a physician was transported to the juvenile section of the jail.