Homeless woman adds five counts of battery on law enforcement while being arrested for burglary with battery

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

Peggy Elerby, 35, was arrested yesterday morning and charged with one felony count of burglary with battery and five counts of battery on a law enforcement officer. Elerby’s address is listed as GRACE Marketplace.

According to the arrest report, Elerby was invited into a home overnight on Wednesday night but was asked to leave at about 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning. She allegedly refused to leave and engaged in a verbal argument, eventually ending up outside the screened porch; at one point, she allegedly used her body to break the screen door off its hinges. She then allegedly hit a resident of the home in the face.

After an Alachua County Sheriff’s deputy arrived and detained Elerby, she allegedly kicked the deputy in the leg, then kicked the deputy in the face. The deputy placed her in a rip hobble to keep her from further kicking, and during that process, she allegedly tried to bite another deputy who was assisting. Inside the patrol vehicle, Elerby allegedly spit on the deputy’s leg through the center partition; she then escaped the rip hobble and allegedly began kicking the partition. After arriving at the jail, staff assisted with getting Elerby out of the patrol vehicle, and she allegedly spit on the deputy two more times.

Her First Appearance order notes that she refused an interview at the jail (“violent”), refused to go to First Appearance, is on probation from a recent felony adjudication, and has an active warrant out of Georgia. She was arrested in November of 2021 for hitting and cutting two other homeless people, but those charges were eventually dropped. She is being held on $300,000 bail.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.