80-year-old woman allegedly pulls gun on husband over state of the nation

Stock image | Photo by MattGush/iStock/Getty Images Plus, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — A verbal altercation between a couple quickly escalated after a woman allegedly pointed a firearm at her husband during an argument Thursday evening.

Constance Brower, 80, of St. George, booking photo taken in Washington County, Utah, Jan. 7, 2021 | Photo courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, St. George News

Shortly before 7 p.m. officers responded to a residence on South 2350 East on a family fight in progress. While en route, officers were advised that one of the parties had a gun and was threatening to shoot the caller.

Officers arrived to hear someone yelling for them to enter and they found a man holding his wife down on the floor of a converted home office and nearby they located a black and silver handgun on a desk near the couple.

Once the weapon was secured officers helped the woman, later identified as 80-year-old Constance Brower, to her feet and brought her into the kitchen to speak to her, noting there was a cut to the woman’s hand, while the man was questioned in another room.

The woman told officers that she had been drinking and “might have had too much to drink,” the officer noted in the probable cause statement filed in support of the arrest.

The report also states she went on to explain that she had gotten into an argument over “politics and the current situation America is in.”

She also told police that she had taken her frustration out on her husband, and as officers were reading the Miranda rights, she told them to take her to jail, and before they could finish, she asked for a lawyer.

Meanwhile, according to the report, the husband told police that during the argument, his wife was drinking alcohol so he was preparing to leave. He packed some clothes and put them in his vehicle, and as he turned around to go back in the house, he found his wife pointing a gun at him as she told him to get his things.

She followed him into the bedroom and when he went into the closet, she pointed the gun at him and told him to sit down in a chair, as she “kept the gun pointed at him with her finger on the trigger,” according to the statement.

When she told him to put his foot out so she could shoot him in the foot, he told her “this was not going to happen,” the officer recounted in the report.

She then told him to go into the den; and once there, he sat in the chair as she continued telling him she was going to kill him.

As the argument ensued, the man was able to knock the firearm from Brower’s hand when she got close enough to him, according to police, at which point both became involved in a scuffle over the firearm until the man was able to grab it and place it out of reach until police arrived.

Brower was taken to the hospital for medical clearance and then transported to Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility where she faces first-degree aggravated kidnapping and third-degree aggravated assault, charges that were filed by the Washington County Attorney’s Office on Friday.

She was also charged with three misdemeanors, including threat of violence, carrying a dangerous weapon under the influence of alcohol and intoxication.

She is scheduled to make an initial appearance Friday afternoon and remains in custody on $25,000 bail.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2021, all rights reserved.

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