Davie - As Valerie Parkhurst was warning neighbors about sex offenders, one of them turned down the street.
She confronted him at gunpoint, and ended up in jail.
Parkhurst, 52, said Monday she was surprised police arrested her after the confrontation with Dale Weeks, 49, in the Playland Village neighborhood on Saturday. She was charged with aggravated assault and two counts of carrying a concealed firearm without a permit.
"I had a convicted sex offender, kidnapper who cornered me," Parkhurst said. "I don't expect to be convicted on any one of those [charges] because I was in the right."
Weeks was convicted in 1996 of abducting and raping a Walton County woman, according to state records. He served nine years and was released from prison in May 2005
Lt. Wayne Boulier, Davie police spokesman, said he can understand that neighbors are concerned when a registered sex offender moves into a community.
"Still, that doesn't justify pulling out a gun and threatening to kill people," he said.
Police said in a report released Monday that Weeks and girlfriend Maria Rodriguez were driving on the 4600 block of Southwest 66th Avenue at 1:50 p.m. Saturday. They were headed to a thrift shop to buy clothes when they came upon Parkhurst, who was posting fliers of sex offenders in the area. Parkhurst recognized Weeks and thought he was following her. So she got out of her Chevy SUV, pulled 9-millimeter Glock from a holster, and told Weeks she would kill him, police said.
Rodriguez, who was behind the wheel, froze and could not drive away, police said. Parkhurst went back to her SUV, grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun, pointed it into the pair's car and again threatened to kill Weeks, police said.
"It's a vigilante-style move," Weeks said Monday. "She has no right to blow me away."
Parkhurst disputes the police account, saying that Weeks and Rodriguez stalked her after they saw her put up the fliers at Weeks' complex hours earlier. Parkhurst said they blocked her in at a dead-end street. When she got out of her truck to ask what they were doing, Parkhurst said Weeks threatened her in a profanity-laced rant.
That's when Parkhurst, mother of an adult son, threatened to shoot him if he touched her, she said. When Weeks continued to swear at her, she grabbed the shotgun she keeps in her SUV for her and her boyfriend's weekly clay shooting practice.
"I figured if the pistol didn't scare him, maybe the shotgun would," Parkhurst said. "I stood there with the shotgun and said, 'If you come near me, I promise you, I will shoot you.'"
