Karl Etters

Democrat staff writer

Police say a Tallahassee man pulled a loaded AK-47 on the father of his wife’s 5-year-old son at a grocery store on Sunday night.

However, Travaun Leverette, a 29-year-old who is charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery, says he brandished the gun in self-defense.

Around 7 p.m. Sunday, Leverette and his wife Abbie Chavers met the boy’s father at the Piggly Wiggly on South Monroe Street to pick up the 5-year-old.

Leverette and Chavers started an argument with the boy’s father, court records say, during which Leverette punched the man twice in the face knocking him to the ground.

Leverette then reached into his parked Saturn sedan, grabbed the assault rifle and pointed it at the man threatening to “shoot the car up,” court records say. The victims said Chavers handed him the rifle, but police were unable to confirm that.

The girlfriend of the biological father, whose 3-year-old daughter was in the car she was riding in, got between Leverette and the man before Leverette got into the car and drove away.

A security guard and manager of the store corroborated the victims’ account of the altercation. Police reviewed security footage that showed a scene similar to what was described.

When police arrived at Leverette’s home, he acknowledged the verbal altercation but said the biological father approached him in a threatening manner twice before turning to grab something stuffed in his sock that he believed was a gun. In Leverette's vehicle, police found the rifle, loaded with one round in the chamber ready to fire.

Leverette said once he noticed the man pulled out a hammer and not a gun, he got into the car and fled. He grabbed the assault rifle to protect his family. A search of the biological father’s car revealed a hammer in the trunk but no other weapons.

Leverette was released from the Leon County Jail Monday on $5,000 bond. Chavers, the 5-year-old’s mother, was arrested on a warrant for petit theft.

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.

