- November 5, 2024
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A Palm Coast woman threatened to shoot up Banfield Pet Hospital at PetSmart after a phone dispute with PetSmart’s corporate office about making remaining payments on a medical plan for her cats. Her phone call included anti-Semitic comments.
The phone call, made by 53-year-old Deidre Keech, took place on March 7.
Keech had called to cancel her cats’ medical plans without making the remaining payments on the contract.
She at first told a phone operator that she couldn’t afford the plan anymore.
The plan for Lexie, the operator said in the recorded call, still had four payments on its yearlong plan.
Keech “becomes very hostile,” according to a deputy’s summary of the audio recording of the phone call.
“I’m not paying for another four months. ... Don’t try to Jew me, any money out of me,” she said. “And if you’re a Jew I apologize, but I can’t — I’m not dealing with it.”
She yelled the word “cancel” repeatedly, then said, “Bull s--- you will not Jew me out of this. What if I told you they were dead? They’re dead, OK? That’s why I’m not paying.”
Then, she said, “Call the cops because I’m about to shoot the s--- out of Banfield. I have a f---ing gun and I will shoot the s--- out of you.”
By the time a deputy was dispatched to the PetSmart on State Road 100, Keech was had already come there, and left — and, in person, wasn’t confrontational with employees at the store, according the deputy’s report.
A Banfield corporate employee tipped off the Palm Coast store about the call, and a store employee confronted Keech when she arrived. Keech told the employee that she didn’t have a gun and had just been upset. Keech got some information, then left.
A deputy confronted her at her house, where she admitted to threatening to shoot up the store, telling the deputy she’d been upset. Keech has been charged with making a false threat of a bomb or explosion.
