Note: The aggravated assault charge against Douglas Pulaski was dropped in January 2013, and the weapons offense moved to county court, where that charge was dropped in April 2013. The case is closed.
Whispering Pines Drive in Palm Coast is a loopy residential street that arcs in the shape of a camel’s humps from two sides of Whipporwill Drive. At the westernmost entrance to Whispering Pines, the lawn of the house at the corner of the two streets is elaborately decorated for Christmas–lights, manger scene, colors.
Four lots down, on the other side of the street, the house at 140 Whispering Pines presents a sharply landscaped front yard, a wreath on the door and the hint of Christmas lights glinting from inside a window. But the loudest eye-catchers outside are two big, orange, red and white NO TRESPASSING signs (“violators will be prosecuted” appears in smaller letters). One of them is hammered on a pine tree on the north side of the house. The other is planted squarely in the middle of the yard, a few feet in front of the entrance, dissonant not only with its manicured surroundings but with a more modest, hand-painted sign attached to a leaning branch behind it that says in white paint: “Welcome friends,” with a red heart between the two words.
This evening, as is usually the case at the address, a Dodge Ram 150 sat in the driveway, facing out, its front license plate frame filled with a Confederate flag. It sat next to a hatchback Hyundai, facing in, with the Christian fish symbol next to a bumper sticker that reads THE END.
Perhaps someone was home this evening. The signs on the property suggested it wasn’t wise to find out. As did the events of late Friday and early Saturday morning when, according to a neighbor’s son, who visits his mother on Whispering pines Drive, the owner of the house at 140 Whispering Pines–Douglas Pulaski, 50–had allegedly been menacing and threatening. That night Pulaski, a former police officer (possibly from New York) stood at the edge of his driveway with a 20-gauge shotgun and stared at the 23-year-old man–Rashon Mays of Palm Coast–and his friend, a 19-year-old woman, as they were getting to Mays’ mother’s house.
The two victims, according to a police report, asked Pulaski why he was staring at them. Pulaski proceeded to point to a hand-painted sign in his driveway (not in evidence this evening) that said: “Stand Your Ground.”
“Read the sign, because I never miss,” Pulaski told the victims, according to the report. “I don’t miss when I shoot.” The statements, the police report went on, “instilled fear into both of the victims by making both of them feel as if he was going to be come violent with them.” Mays told police that it was the second instance of Pulaski allegedly threatening in in a similar way, and that “it has happened to his mother several times also.”
Cops were called.
“Upon our arrival,” the police report reads, Pulaski, who’s lived at that address since 2009, “was sitting in a lawn chair in his garage with the shotgun in his lap.” The shotgun had one round in the chamber and five in its magazine. Pulaski told deputies that he had been drinking “a lot” throughout the evening. He refused to provide a breath sample.
Pulaski was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm while under the influence of alcohol. It wasn’t his first arrest locally. He was jailed on a drunk driving charge in 2010, though the charge was dismissed. On his latest arrest, bond was set at $3,250, which he posted.
A day later, Pulaski, in a phone interview, said the police report was one-sided and wrong in several instance. Pulaski acknowledged being in his garage that evening, cleaning his weapons after having been at a gun range for several hours earlier that day. He said he had not been drinking heavily, and that when the confrontation took place, he’d never gone beyond the middle of his driveway, by his truck, or pointed at the “Stand Your Ground” sign. That sign, he said, had been posted in his back yard at one point (because, Pulaski said, he’s had issues with people using his yard as a cross-over). But it wasn’t face up when the confrontation occurred.
“The sign was just laying on the ground, it was a piece of board I was using as a bench top,” Pulaski said. The cops, he said, lifted it up and took pictures. Pulaski said he never uttered the words cited in the police report. “I didn’t say a word to this guy other than to go back to his house, basically, in those terms,” Pulaski said.
As for the confrontation, he said Mays, who has a considerable arrest record dating back to his juvenile days, was “mouthing off” to him and using foul language, and was himself making his way to Pulaski’s property until Mays’s girlfriend urged him back. Pulaski says he has no issue with Mays’s mother, and speaks kindly and respectfully of her. But he had no kind words for Mays, even though he could not say what, if anything, Mays had done to him at any point. None of the matters in Mays’s arrest history have anything to do with Pulaski.
But Pulaski had larger issues: he says when he moved to his house on Whispering Pines, the neighborhood was fine. But it has gone downhill since, and he’s now trying to sell the house, with no success so far. He says he can sometime sit in his yard and hear gunshots in the R Section, and that it was as if he would have to install bars on his windows next, given the troubles around him. “I’m at my wits’ end,” he said. “To have this guy that makes an allegation against me, it’s like a guy throwing stones from a glass house.” The police, he said, have done little.
Angela Smith says
As a former police officer, Pulaski SHOULD know better than this!
downinthelab says
Sounds like a typical afternoon in beautiful Palm Coast to me. I personally perfer 12 gauge backed up with a concealed 357, but to each his own. Keep off my lawn!!! And stay outta my swales, the city hasn’t cleaned them in a while.
Broccoli Rob says
Shotguns rule for home defense, and revolvers such as .357’s are deadly reliable in times of duress.
Good choices. I’ll try to avoid your lawn.
downinthelab says
How about some fair reporting here, Rashon has been arrested ELEVEN TIMES in the last four years!
A.Friend says
The fact : Rashon Alfonso Mays has a long FELONY career steming from the age 14 to most recent age of 23 just being realeased from prison for posession of a loaded .25 caliber handgun and narcotics,His arrest CONVICTONS include Grand Larceny, Multiple counts of burglary, narcotics posession, battery,Loitering and prowling, Discharging a firearm from a vehicle at a person, Discharging a firearm in public, Obstruction False identity, Probation Violations, Multiple arrests for warrants, person of interest for multiple armed robberies, ongoing investigation in Brevard county, And is being investigated for drug activity in Palm Coast. So before you make any judgements Google this person research him and ask yourself , Do I want to live next door to these activities ? Shouldnt I have the rite to protect my family ?
notasenior says
What a numbskull! Stand Your Ground is making Florida the joke of the US. Now that the law has recieved some unwanted press, I have heard of a number of people who will no longer vacation in Florida. Way to go!
Mario DiGirolamo says
EVERYONE has a gun nowadays. It’s crazy out there!
Deep South says
If this fellow is an ex cop and possibly from New York like the article mentioned, then he is doing a dishonor to us Southerners, by showing the Confederate Flag. The Confederate Flag is a representation of our Southern heritage.
w.ryan says
Remind us…what is this Southern heritage?
Ben Dover says
They lost the war , but act like they won , and the flag is usually used by organizations like the ku klux klan, I say you want to fly a confederate flag or have one in the back window of your truck , then pay them in confederate money , its as old and worthless as the flag
Deep South says
Google it or Southern Pride my friend.
ha! says
Google …another great southern invention?
NortonSmitty says
Well, seeing as how the neighbors sons name he threatened to shoot was Rashon, I’d bet even though he’s a New Yawk Yankee, he’s representing y’alls proud Southern Heritage just fine.
Dave says
So much for mayberry, P.C. is now just a small city with big city features .
mellissa says
What a jerk, and a slap in the face to other officers , he used to be in law enforcement and what a crappy example he sets. Sounds like trash plain and simple, is he so scared and weak of every passerby that nears his residence? Maybe he needs to just return to where he moved here from..its a shame you cant even allow your kids to ride their bikes through their own neighborhood without some drunk idiot sitting outside with a gun..
Joe says
So the guy might have got a little out of hand but alcohol was involved so anything could have went down. These days you have to be careful with who you come across because unfortunately there are a lot of trigger happy individuals that are looking to put holes in you. My advice is to stay away from fools like that and also I do not like it when these teenagers walk around the neighborhood up to no good or better yet pulling off into our median and smoking out, when I call the fuzz they always come way too late and claim there is nothing they can do. That is why I rely solely on my boom sticks to get the job done the first time because I refuse to wait around for the police to slowly make their way to my street when there is suspicious activity going on. Honestly I think this man was just fed up and took his issues out on 2 people with a 20ga, there are better ways of handling things like that and busting out guns is the last option you want to use because once the lead starts flying you better hope you have a good story or else you are locked up.
glad fly says
the south shall rise again.-robert e lee
Maryjoe says
Would be nice to see his pic…ex-cop or no.
confidential says
One more armed bully thanks to the courtesy of the Florida Law that we are all unjustified subject too.
Samuel Smith says
Someone give this man a job with Bunnell PD
Bret says
Actions have consequences and not all speech is protected as this ex-cop found out. Go inside your house and you can posture and swagger all you like.
mw says
Stars and Bars = heritage? So if my German friend decides to fly the Swastika thats heritage too? At least his father was in WW2.
Anonymous says
Maybe he had his house broken into in the past?
Nancy N. says
And even if he had, how would that make threatening random people walking down his street with a shotgun acceptable?
Hancock says
Maybe they were PUNK THUG TRASH . There seems to be a lot of them around Palm Coast these days. Personally, I would have sat in my attic with a high powered rifle and when they made their move to burglarize my house…..BOOM BOOM out go the lights !!!!
Ben Dover says
they were hardly random
Deep South says
But why would someone from New York want to display a Confederate Flag ? Besides Ben Dover it has
nothing to do with who won the war, racism, slavery, KKK, or organizations. A true Southerners like myself knows that the Confederate Flag represents our Southern Culture, our Southern Heritage, our Southern Pride, and the place of our birth. So many people, like yourself have a wrong misconception about our Southern Tradition.
NortonSmitty says
And you could stand and say with a straight face that this proud Southern Tradition in no way has anything to do with hating niggers, Oh excuse me, racism. Right.
Rashon mays says
1st off, just to say fuck all racists people or/ and associates.. It’s a shame coming home from a date to not even my house, but my parents home to see such a sight.. Coming home from prison wanting to better myself isnt as easy done then said! especially in these situations.. God was over my head because if i kept the same mentality as a juvenile, I would’ve had a gun and initiated shooting a drunk punk ass racist excop before the cops have showed up.. It wasnt any burglary act just for the record, not when im in my own driveway being gunned down with my new girlfriend.. Everything happens for a reason and i was in the right with him being in the wrong this time.. Just read comments, so sorry for delay but its always 2 sides to every story.. BLACK LIVES MATTER 💯