A restaurant worker in The Villages was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot his girlfriend’s dog.
Gregory Douglas Whitten, 35, who lives at Lakeside Landings in Oxford, was arrested Saturday morning at the Reveille Cafe at Magnolia Plaza on charges including aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, committing a second-degree felony with a firearm and false imprisonment, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department.
Whitten said he and his girlfriend left the Reveille Cafe at about 2 p.m. Friday and went to their bank and Walmart before arriving home at about 6 p.m. that day. Whitten said he “ate ribs and attempted to lay down for bed,” but received a call from his ex-girlfriend. He claimed his current girlfriend suffers from vertigo and has fallen in the past.
It was a far different story than the girlfriend told police when she went to the Wildwood Police Department the day after the alleged altercation during which Whitten took her gun and threatened to kill her dog, Gizmo. She said Whitten, who was arrested in 2020 on a drunk driving charge near the Haciendas of Mission Hills, “had been drinking and was in a bad mood” from an “incident that occurred while he was at work,” according to the arrest report. Whitten received a call from his ex-girlfriend that caused him to become “even angrier,” she said.
Whitten, who stands 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds, grabbed his girlfriend’s gun and told her, “Say goodbye to Gizmo.” She tried to get the dog away from Whitten, but he pushed the barrel against her forehead and told her, “Don’t move.” He struck her with his fists and took away her phone when she tried to call 911. She curled up in a ball on the floor as Whitten continued to strike her.
The next day she went to the police department. EMS personnel were called to examine her injuries.
Whitten, whom the woman has been in a relationship with for about a year, was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center. Bond for the Akron, Ohio native was set at $85,000.
