Threat to bulldoze house leads to Sumter man’s arrest

Sheriff’s deputies arrested 39-year-old John Robert Atkinson on Friday after he threatened to bulldoze his house in a confrontation with his wife earlier in the week.

On March 23, he allegedly “did threaten to take a backhoe and tear down his residence while shaking his finger vigorously in the face of his spouse which caused her to fear for her life and safety as well as that of her minor child,” the sheriff’s department said in a news release.

Atkinson was charged with criminal domestic violence 1st degree.