COCOA, Fla. \u2013 A Central Florida woman is behind bars after she drove toward children playing in the street, allegedly calling the situation \u201ctarget practice,\u201d according to the Cocoa Police Department.<\/p>\n
In a probable cause affidavit, police said they were called to an apartment building along Rosa L. Drive on Sunday evening in response to the incident.<\/p>\n
Upon arrival, they found the woman \u2014 identified as 59-year-old Pamela Dresser \u2014 in a \u201chighly agitated state,\u201d and someone else yelled that she\u2019d tried to swerve toward the children, referring to it as \u201ctarget practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pamela Jean Dresser, 59, of Cocoa (Brevard County Jail)<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile speaking with Dresser, she denied having swerved in her vehicle towards the children,\u201d the affidavit reads. \u201cDresser stated she had \u2018made a wide turn\u2019 in an effort to avoid a yellow cart on the side of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Dresser also explained that she\u2019d kept going and done some \u201cdonuts\u201d in a nearby gravel lot, police said.<\/p>\n
But when she came back to the parking lot, she was confronted by someone demanding to know why Dresser had tried to strike a person with her car, investigators wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cDresser admitted to making the \u2018target practice\u2019 comment, but quickly tried to minimize that comment to me by saying \u2018it was a joke,\u2019\u201d the affidavit continues.<\/p>\n
That said, as police walked away from her to speak with another resident, she made comments indicating that a \u201cspecial present\u201d would soon be delivered from her, police claimed.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe further stated, \u2018That is a threat,\u2019 in an apparent attempt to influence our actions,\u201d an officer recalled. \u201cMyself and Officer Rosas placed Dresser under arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Dresser was taken to jail, an officer learned from someone nearby that Dresser had swerved toward four children, causing all of them to run away, police said. The person then claimed that Dresser stuck up her middle finger before yelling a racial slur.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to [REDACTED] when herself and [REDACTED] attempted to confront Dresser regarding her actions, Dresser yelled, \u2018Yes, I did try to run your (expletive) children over,\u2019\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n
Now, Dresser faces two counts of making a threat against a public servant, four counts of child abuse without great bodily harm, and four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill. At the time of writing, she remains held on a bond of $250,000.<\/p>\n
Her next hearing is slated for July 2 at 8 a.m. for arraignment.<\/p>\n
Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n
Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COCOA, Fla. \u2013 A Central Florida woman is behind bars after she drove toward children playing in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[315,7071,7286,265,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-306291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-brevard-county","tag-children","tag-cocoa","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}