Teens raising money for team held at gunpoint by woman in driveway, police say

WYNNE, Ark. (WGHP/CNN) -- Four Arkansas teens were going door to door to raise money for their high school football team when a woman held them at gunpoint, police say.

The 10th-grade boys, who are all black and who were not identified because of their ages, were selling discount cards for restaurants and stores in Wynne, Arkansas, on August 7. Jerri Kelly, who told police that she is a former law enforcement officer and the wife of a county jail administrator, stopped them in front of her home, according to a police report.

Kelly, who is white, said she saw the boys making a ruckus, according to the police report. She called the Wynne Police Department to report “suspicious persons” and in a later statement said, “All males were African American, and I know this residence to be white.”

As the boys approached her home, walking up her driveway and standing in her yard, Kelly picked up her revolver and came out to ask what they were doing, according to her statements. Even though they said they weren't stealing, Kelly told police, she instructed them to get on the ground.

One boy told officers that he thought it was a joke until Kelly said to “get on the f---ing ground and spread your legs,” the police report says.

When they were on the ground, the boys said in their statements, she told them she would shoot if they moved. She asked whether they knew who she was and whose house it was. When the boys tried to explain what they were doing, they told police, she accused them of lying.

When officers arrived, they found the four boys lying face-down on the ground, with their hands behind their backs, and Kelly standing about 10 feet from them with a gun drawn, according to the police report. One of the officers, who was also a school resource officer, recognized the boys and explained the situation to Kelly. They were allowed to stand, and the situation was defused.

Kelly told the police that it didn't appear to her that the boys were selling anything, the report says. “They spent a good five minutes goofing off and screwing around in [the neighbor's] driveway and up around their house. That's not selling cards,” she said, according to the report.

Kelly, 46, was arrested Monday and charged with four counts of aggravated assault and first degree false imprisonment — both felonies — as well as four counts of endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree.

Police didn't immediately take a mugshot of Kelly, but Cross County Sheriff David West — for whom Kelly's husband works — told WMC that it wasn't because of preferential treatment but because of a “medical issue” during her booking. A mugshot was taken later.