Naples man makes ‘citizen’s arrest’ of woman he says was driving too slowly

Irena Numanovic says she was scared for her life driving home Friday afternoon when she noticed her neighbor driving right behind her, getting dangerously close.

“I thought he was going to kill me honestly. I don’t know know, I couldn’t really think,” she said. “You can see him in the rear view mirror, somebody just like speeding up instead of slowing down behind you and I said what’s going on? And he just sped right up in front of me and blocked me.”

She says 51-year-old Kristopher Umpenhour pinned her car in, then got out of his truck in a rage.

“So I come out of my car, I’m like, what’s going on? What are you doing? He’s like, you’re driving too slow. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know how to drive. He’s screaming obscenities, his body is pushing up against mine, his breath is in my face,” Numanovic recounts.

That was when she says he grabbed her wrists and claimed she was under a “citizen’s arrest.”

“I said get away from me. I pushed him off of me. I was really scared and he just grabbed my wrist and twisted it behind me and just shut me up against my car. Started screaming citizen’s arrest and I’m like, what are you doing? Get off me! And I started screaming for help,” Numanovic said.

Witnesses at the scene say they saw Umpenhour go through her car and then take off.

Now, living only one building over from her and out on bond, Numanovic says she hopes he stays away.

“He has to be held accountable. You can’t just go around doing that. I’m like living here with him so close by, I don’t know him. I just don’t feel safe,” she said.

In the state of Florida, a citizen’s arrest is legal. According to the law, you can detain someone, until police arrive, if you witness a felony or reasonably believe someone committed a felony.

It would not apply to a misdemeanor, and especially not for driving slowly, like deputies say happened in this case.