INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Floyd's girlfriend refused to pursue criminal charges against him later and refused to co-operate.
They came
into the DeLand Animal Hospital together: Jeremy Floyd, his girlfriend and the dog.The dog wasn't acting right, the couple told the vet
Frankly, the woman looked in worse shape.Floyd's 28-year-old girlfriend had a swollen eye, cuts all over her fingers, bruises on her arms
All this was later described in a report filed by police and sheriff's deputies in DeLand, Florida
The report named the woman, too, though this newspaper will not - on account of the things she apparently went through.The woman asked to
use the vet's bathroom and left Floyd waiting with the dog.When she was out of his sight, police said, she slid a torn scrap of paper to a
worker behind the counter.In cramped, shaky handwriting, it read: "Call the cops
My boyfriend is threatening me
Please don't let him know."Floyd's girlfriend slipped a note to a hospital worker, in a very shaky handwriting.The worker did as the note
When DeLand police officers got to the animal hospital, they said, they found Floyd with a loaded 9mm in his waistband, his girlfriend in
tears.Floyd has an arrest record going back to at least 2003: drugs, grand theft auto and more drugs
Possession of a firearm by a felon was the least of the crimes he was charged with this weekend - but the gun was enough for police to
immediately detain him and get him away from the woman.At the hospital, police said - an actual hospital, not the vet - doctors discovered
the woman had a possible concussion, along with her other wounds
Her head hurt, she told investigators, and the pain made it hard to remember.But in time, police wrote, she told them about her injuries and
the events of the previous two days
It was a story that only barely aligned with the version Floyd told from jail - and one that, in the end, police would believe.The couple
had a fight on Wednesday night, both of them agreed - what started as an argument at the single-story, tree-shrouded house they shared in
DeLand.They had been drinking, police said Floyd told them
And what he allegedly recalled as "unknown white pills."The woman didn't mention any alcohol or drugs in her interview
She said Floyd became jealous that night and got it into his head she was flirting with other men.Floyd somewhat confirmed this
"He was upset with [her] because he has a problem with n--s," the police report reads, "and felt that she was a n-- lover."He apparently
told the woman to go into the bedroom and wait for various black men to arrive to have sex with.This was Floyd's idea of a joke, he told the
police.The woman did, in fact, go into the bedroom, she said
Once there, she promptly jumped out the window.Floyd told police that his girlfriend dove headfirst from the window
He said she collapsed in the yard and that he had to pick her up and carry her inside.The woman told police that she ran - and he chased her
down the street and grabbed her by the hair, then dragged her back into the house.Then he hit her in the kitchen, she said: his open hand to
(Floyd told police they had merely "tussled." No beatings.)Which one brought the gun out depended on which one told the story.In his
interview, police wrote, Floyd admitted that it was illegal for a felon like him to even keep the pistol, according to the report
But he said he needed it to protect his girlfriend from a violent ex.In his version of the story, his girlfriend produced the gun that night
She threatened to kill herself in front of him, he said, so he tried to take it from her.In her interview, the woman said Floyd got the gun
and threatened to kill her with it
So she tried to take it from him.In any case, they grappled over the pistol
They both heard it go off.When police searched the house the following weekend, after the vet's office and the note and everything else,
they found two bullet holes through the drywall
At least no one had been shot.Floyd finally won control over the gun - whoever had first produced it, and in whatever capacity
He told police he unloaded the weapon and then fell asleep with his girlfriend, at peace.The woman said only that she slept for the next 22
hours.Her head hurt.When she woke on Friday, she said, Floyd began trying to apologize
He told her "God was punishing him," police wrote.She wanted only to get out of the house, she said, and so she told Floyd that the dog
Could she please take it to the vetFloyd insisted on coming along, police wrote, and he brought the gun with him.As they drove, the woman
said, Floyd pointed the gun at her "and stated that he was going to kill her and her entire family."Floyd denied this in his interview
He said the pair had been getting along fine since the argument
He said he had no idea why his girlfriend would make up a story about the dog and write a secret rescue note to contact the police.Her
reasons seemed clear to the police, and the Volusia County Sheriff's Office deputies who conducted much of the investigation.After the
interviews and counting the rounds in the gun, witnessing the bullet holes in the house and seeing the woman's many cuts and bruises, police
booked Floyd into jail for at least his 14th time.He remained there on Sunday, charged with aggravated assault with a weapon, false
imprisonment and battery, plus the firearm charges.And the sheriff's office posted a photo of the woman's note on Facebook, and praised the
vet worker and everyone else involved in rescuing a woman held against her will."Thank God for the courage of this woman," Volusia County
Sheriff Mike Chitwood wrote on Twitter.The woman, however, told police she did not want to pursue criminal charges against her boyfriend and
declined to cooperate further with the case.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is
published from a syndicated feed.)
