'I'll be damned if I let him have the last word,' mom says before shooting at son

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Unable to let her adult son have the last word in an argument, a Panama City Beach woman has been arrested after allegedly shooting at him with a .22 caliber handgun while he was riding his bicycle along Front Beach Road on Saturday night.

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Priscilla Ann Ethridge, 66, has been charged with aggravated assault with a firearm and booked into the Bay County Jail. She was being held on $2,500 bail after her first appearance Monday.

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According to police reports, Ethridge and her 46-year-old son live together and had been having an argument when her son left the house on his bicycle. A nephew told Bay County Sheriff’s Office deputies that Ethridge armed herself with the .22 revolver before heading out the door after her son, saying, “I’ll be damned if I let him have the last word.”

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Ethridge drove down Lakeview Drive, then turned eastbound on Front Beach Road when she caught up to her son, according to documents. She later told deputies that she believed her son had her cellphone and she was yelling at him to give it back. She said her son grabbed her car door, and that she fired the shot to “scare” him into letting go.

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Her son told deputies he had been riding his bicycle to get away from his mother when she rode up beside him, yelling she was going to shoot him before firing her gun. According to the report, the victim was not struck, but the bullet came “very close” to him.

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The gun was taken from the Ethridge and had one spent shell casing in the chamber. Ethridge’s cellphone was later located at her home

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