MARION COUNTY, Fla. – The State Attorney’s Office has decided to not pursue charges against a woman who shot her husband back in March, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
Police were dispatched to a domestic disturbance call at 9 p.m. on 8311 SE 16th Terrace in Ocala on March 22.
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When deputies were on the way to the home, the status of the call was changed from a disturbance to a shooting.
Mark Penland, 53, was found with a gunshot wound at this home, the sheriff’s office said.
An investigation by authorities discovered that Mark Penland had been physically and verbally abusive toward Michelle Dinkins-Penland’s 14-year-old son.
Mark Penland had threatened the boy’s life before the shooting and had broken several of his ribs in a prior incident, the sheriff’s office said.
The night of the shooting, the 14-year-old invited a friend over to his home for his birthday, and later on that evening Penland began to attack and beat him, the sheriff’s office said.
When the teen’s grandmother and mother tried to break up the fight, the grandmother was thrown to the ground by Penland, the sheriff’s office said.
Dinkins-Penland pleaded with Penland to stop beating her son, and he told her he was going to kill the teen, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities say Dinkins-Penland, who has a Florida concealed weapons permit, used her .38 revolver to shot her husband twice to keep him from continuing to abuse her son.
The teen called 911 and his mother tried to help Penland, the sheriff’s office said.
CPR was performed on Penland until paramedics arrived.
He was transported to the hospital, where he died in the early morning of March 23, officials said.
Authorities said Dinkins-Penland was in her legal right to use deadly force against Penland “based on a reasonable fear that her life, her mother’s life and certainly her son’s life were in danger.”