BEVERLY — A man was arrested Thursday night after firing a gun from his back porch at a neighbor who was looking for her lost cat.
Richard Davis, 56, of 24 Conant St., Beverly, was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, disturbing the peace, and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling, according to a police report. He was arraigned in Salem District Court on Friday and held without bail, according to the Essex County District Attorney’s Office.
According to the police report, the woman was looking for her cat outside the Bass River condominiums at about 10 p.m. Thursday when Davis, who lives next door, came out on his back porch and started shooting in her direction with a 9mm Beretta pistol.
The woman, Lydia Hester, told police that Davis said: “You have five seconds to get off my property or I will shoot again,” and then added, “I do not miss mother (expletives).”
“I started running when he was at ‘two’,” Hester said in an interview. “Thank God he didn’t shoot again.”
Hester, 29, said she was stunned by the incident. She said she often stays at the condo with her fiance and has walked her mother’s dog on the property. She said she was on condo property, on the other side of the fence from Davis’ house and about 10 feet away, when the porch light came on and he began shooting.
Hester said it was dark and she does not know how close the bullets came to hitting her. She said she heard the shell casings striking the floor of Davis’ porch.
Hester said neighbors heard the shots and came outside and told her to start running.
“I thought, ‘This isn’t real,'” she said. “I was frozen.”
When Beverly police responded to the scene, four officers started making their way toward Davis’ backyard when they saw a bright flashlight pointed in their direction. They found Davis and his wife on the back porch, according to the report. Police ordered Davis to put the flashlight down and keep his hands up, then placed him under arrest.
Police said they had to use three sets of handcuffs on Davis because of his size and weight, and transported him to the police station in the patrol supervisor vehicle because he could not fit in the back seat of a regular police cruiser. Davis is 5-foot-11 and weighs 275 pounds, according to the police report.
Police said they went into the house and found a 9mm Beretta pistol in the kitchen sink loaded with eight rounds in the magazine, which can hold 10 rounds. Police then found two 9mm shell casings in the dirt directly behind the back porch.
Police said Davis, whose occupation was listed as “security,” also had 13 firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition locked up in safes inside his house. Among the weapons were seven rifles, four shotguns and two pistols. Police seized and suspended Davis’ license to carry.
Attorney Patrick Conway, who was appointed by the court to represent Davis, said his client is a “family man” with no previous involvement with police. He said no one was hit by the bullets, and that he will appeal the judge’s order to detain Davis.
Hester called the whole situation “surreal” and said she now feels unsafe.
“It doesn’t feel like real life that I could be looking for a cat in a neighborhood I’m in every day and be shot at,” she said. “That shouldn’t happen.”
The only good news for Hester is that her cat, Mr. Waffles, which she had gotten only the day before, returned home safely. He was sitting on the porch at 3 a.m., waiting to be let in.
“It’s a miracle,” Hester said.