The release of an arrest report is offering details of a weekend parking dispute that led to a 76-year-old Villager being jailed.
James William Coats, who lives in the La Cresenta Villas in the Village of Santiago, was booked Saturday afternoon on a charge of aggravated assault at the Sumter County Detention Center. He is free on $2,000 bond.
Coats had been involved in a “heated argument” with the owner of a large work truck that has been at the center of a long-running parking dispute.
Coats was standing in the threshold of his garage and the truck’s owner was standing in the street, in front of Coats’ residence, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. The truck’s owner told deputies that Coats armed himself with a red-and-black claw hammer and started down the driveway. Coats, using an expletive, threatened to kill the truck’s owner, who lifted his shirt and exposed a pistol. That prompted Coats’ wife to seize the hammer from her husband.
The truck’s owner had a valid concealed weapons permit, the report noted.
Residents of the villa community spoke out in January about the truck which they claimed had been a problem for a year. They complained before the Community Development District 2 Board of Supervisors that the truck’s owner was running a business out of his home. They also claimed that the truck was noisy and spewing diesel exhaust.
Coats was one of those who took to the podium.
“I suspect if this truck was parked across from your house, you’d get rid of it,” the Eaton Rapids, Mich. native told the supervisors.
However, the residents were told that the owner of the truck was not violating the law or any deed restrictions.
