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David Aaron Clement

A Villager is using a Stand Your Ground defense in a UPS golf cart holiday delivery dispute that ended in his arrest.

A motion hearing is set this week in the case of 57-year-old David Aaron Clement of the Village of Bonita. He was arrested in December while working as a golf cart delivery driver for UPS.

The UPS manager on Dec. 16 informed Clement the golf cart he had been using was going to be used by someone else and ordered Clement to get out of the vehicle, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriffs Office. Clement refused to exit the vehicle, prompting the 6 foot fall UPS manager to get into the golf cart and sit beside Clement, triggering an alleged altercation between the two men. Clement was arrested on a charge of battery.

He has since hired defense attorney Mark Conan, who earlier this year successfully defended a Villager who had been accused of battering a neighbor with whom he had a long-running feud.

Conan has filed a motion seeking dismissal of the case against Clement based on self-defense immunity.

In the motion, Conan claims it was the UPS manager, who was upset with Clement from an incident the previous day and was using a hostile tone, and body slammed Clement. The motion claims the body slam was the initial contact between the two men which eventually led to Clements arrest. Though the original arrest report said that witnesses corroborated the UPS managers version of events, Conan points out the UPS manager waited three hours after the alleged altercation before calling law enforcement.

In the motion, Conan argues that if a person is in a place they lawfully have a right to be and they are confronted with any type of force, deadly or not, the person no longer has a duty to retreat and can defend themselves with deadly force if necessary.

The motion is scheduled to be heard Thursday in Sumter County Court.

Floridas Stand Your Ground law came into the national spotlight in 2012 after George Zimmerman notoriously shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was acquitted in the case. Stand Your Ground had been signed into law in 2005 by Gov. Jeb Bush. Thanks to the Zimmerman case, the legacy of Stand Your Ground dogged Bushs ill-fated 2016 run for the White House.

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Villager using Stand Your Ground defense in UPS golf cart delivery ... - Villages-News