click to enlarge Screengrab via Jeremy Lee/Facebook
Screenshot from a video showing David H. Berry holding a gun while pointing and shouting at landscapers.
On July 7, a Clearwater man with a lengthly criminal history pulled what looks like an AR-style gun on a Black father and daughter who were landscaping a lawn across the street from him, according to a recent
video shared across social media.
In the video, David H. Berry of Fat Finger Construction can be seen holding the rifle and yelling at Jeremy Lee, while his daughter Carrie Lee films the interaction.
In the past, Berry has been charged with at least three felonies, including battery and burglary, according to Pinellas County Court records. All were pled down to misdemeanors.
"This is my property, you're not allowed to block my driveway, don't be a prick!" Berry yells while pointing at Jeremy.
"I told you I'll move," Jeremy says, seemingly trying to deescalate the situation.
"You think I'm playing, punk ass, your daughter better take record of how stupid her father is!" Berry said, referencing Carrie recording the interaction and pointing at the 22-year-old while holding the gun. "Keep recording, if it goes online, your ass will be sued too!"
"You pulling a gun on a guy on city property?" asked Jeremy, who was standing in the street with Carrie.
"This is my property and I'll do what I want, do not block somebody's driveway!" Berry shouts.
Carrie was filming from the street, which is in fact public property.
Berry approached them and kept talking, knowing that he was being filmed. So there was no expectation to privacy, like if someone were to film a person in a bathroom or other private place without their knowledge.
Also in the video, Berry pulls out his phone and seemingly starts recording them in return, doing the same thing he said he would sue them for.
In the video, Lee's landscaping trailer does not seem to be blocking the driveway. But when the gate for the trailer was down temporarily to load out the lawnmower, it went near Berry's driveway on the street in front of it causing him to become enraged and start cussing at the landscapers, Carrie told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
The Clearwater Police Department arrived after Jeremy called them, but Berry had already put away his gun, Carrie said, and video shows the cops standing across the street, not taking action.
Even though the police were shown the video and told what happened, Carrie said they were told there was nothing that could be done.
CL reached out to CPD's "communication's manager" and other members of the communications team before this story was published, but was informed by the public safety PIO after publication of this story that we should reach out to that department in the future.
"CPD continues to actively investigate this as a potential case of aggravated assault with a firearm," CPD wrote in an email. "On scene, our officers were given conflicting stories from those involved. David Berry told officers he retrieved his gun after being threatened by Jeremy Lee. Jeremy Lee said David Berry pointed the weapon at him as he threatened him. Jeremy’s daughter said she captured the entire incident on video; the video did not show the weapon being pointed at anyone. Often, it takes time to sort through these cases to determine if charges are warranted. We are still in the process of doing that."
When asked if any officer had told Carrie Lee that there was nothing the police could do about the situation, CPD declined to give official comment beyond the statement it sent.
Berry declined to comment via email, writing, "There will be no comment about this. You should check with the Clearwater Police about this."
The traumatic events of the interaction didn't set in for Carrie until later that night, she told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. She said that before the video footage, Berry had told both of them he would shoot them dead.
"I was so shocked that the reaction didn't set in for a while," she said. "But I was terrified, I am still terrified that someone would do this while we were just trying to do our work."
And she thinks that the reaction from Berry has to do with the fact that he is a white man while she and her father are Black.
"The racism, I'm almost used to it, because I deal with it every day," she said.
Her stepmother Stacey Gordon said that the police would have reacted much differently had the gunman been Black. Across the country,
police have treated armed white men much less aggressively than Black people, even if they are unarmed.
"They would have definitely approached him with their guns drawn before even knowing what took place," Gordon wrote in a post on social media. "The America we live in!"
She was just happy that her loved ones got home safe, but acknowledged that things could have gone a lot differently.
"I could have hysterically been trying to explain to our kids that they'd never see their dad or sister again," she wrote.
UPDATED: This story was updated on 07/09/22 at 7:35 a.m. with a statement from Clearwater Police Department.