KEY WEST, Florida (30 July 2004) -- A 69-year old Stock Island woman was arrested Thursday afternoon after allegedly taking a potshot with a handgun at mini-lobster season snorklers in a canal behind her house. Three young men told Monroe County Sheriff's deputies that the woman, Mary Alice Workman, pointed a gun at a nearby pontoon boat and opened fire on them when they tried to warn the other lobster divers. Other witnesses corroborated their account. No one was hurt in the incident. ''We've had similar incidents in the past, not many, but some,'' said Becky Herrin, a Monroe County Sheriff's spokeswoman. A new mini-season ordinance in Monroe bars recreational lobster fishermen from catching lobster within 300 feet of a residential shoreline -- including neighborhood canals -- in most areas of the county besides Key West. During the two-day mini season that ran Wednesday and Thursday, police issued a number of warnings and some citations to violators. | | When police arrived at Workman's home Thursday, they found her ''yelling and waving her arms'' on her back deck, Herrin said. After police placed her in handcuffs, she told them where she stashed the .38-caliber handgun allegedly used in the incident. 'We said `Where's the gun?' She said, 'under a pillow on my bed,' '' Herrin said. Workman was charged with aggravated assault and discharging a firearm in public. |
