A renter driving a BMW has been sentenced after firing a gun during a 2023 road rage incident at Magnolia Plaza in The Villages.
Jeffrey Thane Whitmore, 68, has pleaded no contest in Sumter County Court to charges of discharging a firearm in public, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and leaving the scene of an accident. He has been placed on probation for four years.
Whitmore, who was driving on a Virginia driver’s license and listed an address at a rented patio villa in the Kate Villas in the Village of Marsh Bend, was at the wheel of a gray BMW sport utility vehicle on Dec. 5, 2023 when he deliberately ramming the back of a red Jeep driven by a 38-year-old man, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department.
The man driving the Jeep said he’d left the 7-Eleven at Magnolia Plaza and pulled up to the nearby stoplight. The BMW deliberately rammed the back of the Jeep and then the BMW sped away. A witness indicated the Jeep had cut in front of the BMW.
The driver of the Jeep began following the BMW in an attempt to obtain the license plate number. The BMW driver held up a gun and fired two shots in the direction of the Jeep. The driver of the Jeep pulled into the parking lot of nearby Grace Tabernacle. Police officers and EMS responded to the scene. The driver of the Jeep was highly emotional and had trouble calming down, the report said. He said he “felt the rounds” from the gun pass by his vehicle.
Officers went to work and found that the same vehicle had been involved in a road rage incident in 2023 in Sarasota County. In that incident, the driver was “brandishing a firearm out of the window.” Sarasota County law enforcement had been unable to find the vehicle.
Officers went to Whitmore’s rented villa in The Villages, but were unable to find him. Police used Facelogics to assemble a photo lineup and the man driving the Jeep picked Whitmore out of the lineup.
He was arrested on Valentine’s Day of this year after turning himself in at the Sumter County Detention Center.