Man arrested for threatening to kill mother and toddler with a knife
Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Willie James Daniels, Jr., 36, was arrested yesterday for allegedly threatening to kill a woman and her two-year-old child with a knife, pushing the child, and spitting in the woman’s face.
At about 8:54 p.m. on May 27, an Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputy responded to an apartment at an undisclosed location, where the adult female victim said Daniels had been inside her apartment and she wanted him to leave. She said he started arguing with her and pushed her two-year-old child to the ground before picking up a kitchen knife and threatening to kill her and her child. As he started to leave, he allegedly spat in the woman’s face and then ran.
A witness told the deputy she encountered Daniels as he was leaving and said he admitted spitting in the woman’s face.
Daniels was found and arrested at the Circle K at 5237 SW 20th Avenue, and a search incident to arrest reportedly produced a small bag of marijuana.
Post Miranda, Daniels reportedly admitted spitting at the woman and said the child had been in his face, but he did not push the child. When asked about the knife, he reportedly “became very irate and began yelling that he did not have a knife.”
Daniels, who is described as homeless on the arrest report, has been charged with aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony, child abuse without great bodily harm, battery, and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana. Locally, he has two misdemeanor convictions (non-violent). Judge Meshon Rawls set bail at $34,000.
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.
This low life needs to be put away for life. Nobody should ever put their hand on a child and threaten a child with a knife. I’m sure he is a graduate of alachua county schools.
Where’d he come from, before being attracted to our mentally houseless NGO bureaucracy supporters?
ACLUSPLCDNC 👿👺👹🤡💩
The city manager is doing a crappy job… I shouldn’t see one panhandler or vagrants bumming around littering up the city. We pay tax money to fund grace mkt
And it has only brought more homeless and crime to our city…
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”….there should be a limit
On the number of vagrants in the C of G…
Grace mkt is a backfired boondoggle …things have gotten worse. There needs to be a visible reduction in crime , litter, & vagrancy if we are going to be funding the city & counties failed programs.
We need results…DeSantis needs to step in with the DOGE to investigate how much we are spending on each Grace service recipient and why things are getting worse.
Sherman, i agree 100%.
I was homeless in gainesville when Tent City was going on,b4 Grace Mrkt. I spent 4 months at Grace,got sober and got off the streets.
While i was there i saw a lot of bs going on. I would LOVE to see DOGE go in and see where every penny has gone.
I know things haven’t gotten better for the homeless. A few times i went to Old Town to see my family, i drove thru Gainesville and saw so many homeless flying signs. So many millions of dollars ha e been spent but not much has changed. When they opened Grace, so many people came to gainesville for ‘all the free stuff at Grace’. The grounds were pristine when they first opened. I went by there a couple years later and it was worse then the real Tent City was. I read newspaper stories about how the cops were out there everyday,drug sales, drugs overdoses ect.
I am just so very very grateful to be sober and to not have to live that horrible life being homeless. Only by the Grace of God do i have a beautiful life today.
Good for you Sammi, I know it took hard work and perseverance to turn your life around but God bless you, you did it. I’m so happy for you!
Only $34k for threatening to kill a kid. Why so low?