A Uniondale homeowner was arrested after he grabbed a rifle from his house and fired warning shots in a confrontation with a large group of men on his lawn on Sunday night, Nassau County police said.
George Grier, 30, fired rounds into the ground and air from an assault-style rifle during the argument at his Northern Parkway home at 8 p.m. No one was hurt.
His sister, Caprice Rines, said Grier feared for the safety of his wife and two small children when about 20 men converged on his lawn after two of them began quarreling. He didn’t know the men, who ignored his requests to leave and kept approaching the house, she said.
“They were swarming on the property,” so he got a hunting rifle he had bought at a sporting-goods store, Rines told the Associated Press. “He felt like: ‘I have to protect my family.'”
Grier was released on $10,000 bond after his arraignment on charges of reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon Monday, his sister said.
A FedEx worker, Grier is the grandson of a local minister and is a church deacon himself, his sister said. He and his wife have two daughters, 2 and 1.
“This is blowing our minds, that he’s being arrested for this,” Rines said. “You’re talking about a family that are believers, and we believe we have the right to bear arms.”
He bought the rifle for self-defense amid concern about recent shootings in the area, she said.
With Associated Press