A Florida woman’s arrest on theft charges for handing the guns of her allegedly abusive husband over to police has become a flashpoint in America’s ongoing gun violence crisis.

After their divorce hearing on June 14, Courtney Taylor Irby and her estranged husband got into an argument. She got in her car to drive away and called 911, saying she feared for her life, police wrote in an arrest affidavit for her husband, Joseph Irby, reports The Ledger.

Get push notifications with news, features and more.

While on the call, her husband allegedly rear-ended her bumper multiple times, according to the affidavit, LKLDNow.com reports.

Joseph Irby, was arrested and charged with a felony charge of aggravated battery, the Associated Press reports. At his bond hearing the next morning, a judge said he wasn’t allowed to own weapons.

Courtney knew he had guns, and while he was in jail, she went into his locked apartment and took his pistol and a handgun and then turned them over to the Lakeland Police Department.

“She heard a judge say he could not possess the weapons, and she did not trust he would do anything about it,” her attorney Lawrence Shearer told The Ledger.

In her arrest report, an officer asked the 32-year-old mother of two if she was admitting that she had gone into her husband’s locked apartment and robbed him.

“Yes,” she said, in the arrest report documents. “He wasn’t going to turn them in so I am doing it.”

The arresting officer called her ex — who was in custody — and her ex said he wanted to press charges.

Courtney Taylor Irby was arrested and charged with armed burglary of a dwelling and grand theft of a firearm. She was processed at the same police station where, the day before, she alleged her husband had made 27 harassing phone calls to her. The officer who placed her under arrest was the same one she spoke with the day before.

• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

“My concern is this is an example of the victim just not being taken seriously,” her divorce attorney Art Fulmer told The Ledger.

In an interview with The Ledger, Lakeland Police Chief Ruben Garcia said the judge’s order that Joseph Irby not own guns was an “admonishment,” but not a “warrant for us to go into someone’s residence.”

“We could have certainly tried to make contact with him and say, ‘We understand you’re under this order from the judge and if you have weapons we’d like you to surrender them,’” Garcia told the paper. “But we weren’t given that opportunity.”

Democratic State Rep. Anna Eskamani sent a letter to State Attorney Brian Haas urging him not to prosecute, The Ledger reports.

“Prosecuting Ms. Irby sets a scary precedent that if someone seeks help to escape abuse, they will be punished for it,” Eskamini wrote.

Assistant State Attorney Jake Orr tells PEOPLE, “We have received that letter. We certainly will take it into account,” and says the office is reviewing the case.

PEOPLE’s calls to the local police and the attorneys of Courtney Taylor Irby and Joseph Irby were not returned.