Clermont Woman Arrested for Hate Crime After Spat with Neighbors Involving Baseball Bat, Hockey Stick, Shovel
CLERMONT, Florida—A Clermont woman was arrested after a neighbor’s Ring camera captured a violent altercation between her and another set of neighbors, according to an arrest affidavit.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office responded to a home on Moonflower Court in unincorporated Clermont on a report of a battery shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday and spoke with a man who said an altercation had occurred between him and his neighbors. The man told a deputy he saw his son get shot in the face by his neighbor’s son with a Nerf gun from about 6 inches away and he walked over to have a conversation with the boy’s mother, Heather M. Schunk, 41.
Schunk was “very belligerent” and reportedly told the man she was not in the right state mental state to talk to him and he asked to speak with her husband. He told LCSO Schunk became aggressive, and they proceeded to have a verbal altercation. Schunk’s husband came outside, and the man’s wife walked up and joined in the verbal altercation. Schunk’s husband then “got in (the man’s) face” in a “threatening manner,” while Schunk grabbed a hockey stick from the garage area, the affidavit states.
The victim told Schunk’s husband to step away and he did not and the victim pushed him, he told the deputy. Schunk then swung the hockey stick at the victim, striking his left arm. She dropped the hockey stick and picked up a shovel and a baseball bat and swung them in the direction of the victim and his wife. As Schunk walked away she said, “Go back to Mexico and eat a burrito in Mexico,” and that statement was captured on the female victim’s phone, according to the affidavit. The female victim told the deputy she “took offense to the words and stated she believed it was a hate crime,” the deputy noted in the affidavit.
An independent witness provided Ring camera video to the deputy that corroborated the victims’ story and Schunk was taken into custody. Schunk’s husband complained of jaw pain and was transported to a local hospital and Schunk was arrested for two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon-hate crime and one count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. She was booked into the Lake County Jail and released on $14,000 bond.
