School employee accused of pulling gun on his son

The Hernando schools' maintenance chief is charged with domestic aggravated assault with a firearm.

By JAMIE MALERNEE and ROBERT KING

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 8, 2000

BROOKSVILLE -- The maintenance manager for the Hernando County school district is accused of threatening his 22-year-old son with a gun.

Frankie Burnett, 44, of 460 Hale Ave., Apartment 39, Brooksville, faces a charge of domestic aggravated assault with a firearm. Burnett has been a school district employee since 1982, during which time he has held a handful of jobs in the maintenance department, which serves every public school in the county.

According to Brooksville police, Burnett pulled up Wednesday to the house where his son, Fabian Burnett, lives with his grandmother at 817 Shayne St. and began fighting with him. Fabian Burnett told his father to leave, but the father refused.

That's when Frankie Burnett pulled out a large black handgun from the console of his truck and pointed it at his son, saying "I will get you," Brooksville police Chief Ed Tincher said.

What happened next is unclear. Both Fabian Burnett and his grandmother told police that Frankie Burnett pulled the trigger twice, although the gun never went off, Tincher said. Frankie Burnett told police that he never fired and that the gun was unloaded.

The father, who is an executive board member of the Hernando NAACP, also said the only reason he pulled the gun out of his truck was because his son reached for the weapon, and although he would never hurt one of his children, he wasn't going to let one of them hurt him either, Tincher said.

Tincher said that when police recovered the .357-caliber Magnum Ruger, it was loaded. However, Tincher added that there were no "primer marks" on the bullets to indicate that the trigger had been pulled.

That means either Frankie Burnett never fired the gun, or it was loaded after the incident, or the bullets were switched, he said. Tincher added officials were not sure which scenario is the case.

Frankie Burnett was arrested Wednesday and taken to the Hernando County Jail, where he was released Thursday without having to post bail. He could not be reached for comment Friday. Annie Washington, the maternal grandmother who police say witnessed the fight, said she and her grandson did not want to talk about the incident.

"There was no fight," she said.

Wanda Washington, Fabian Burnett's mother and Frankie Burnett's ex-wife, said the fight was most likely the result of a continuing personal dispute between the father and son, made worse by the fact that Frankie Burnett was angry at Fabian for supposedly "disrespecting" his paternal grandmother.

Whatever the reason, Irvin Homer, who like Burnett is an executive committee member of the NAACP, said he expects the organization to take a wait-and-see attitude toward the charge against Burnett. While there is a presumption of innocence, Homer said, the NAACP will want to know the facts. This incident comes on the heels of the drunken driving arrest last month of NAACP president John Wallace. It was his third DUI arrest.

Homer said the arrests are cause for concern within the organization. "It doesn't speak very well for the image of the NAACP," he said.

School Superintendent John Sanders became aware of Burnett's arrest only late Friday afternoon. He and other senior district officials have been vacationing this week. But they will look into the matter, Sanders said.

Burnett oversees a sizable number of grounds crew workers and laborers who maintain all the public school campuses in Hernando County.

He is one of three managers who answer to the director of facilities, plant operations and maintenance, Sanders said.

"Frankie has been one of our finer employees," the superintendent said.

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