Mom Lauded a Hero After Arrest for Beating Son's Alleged Heroin Dealer With Baseball Bat

A Missouri mother is becoming a bit of a folk hero after facing charges for attacking her son's alleged heroin dealer with an aluminum baseball bat.

Sherrie Gavan of Imperial, near St. Louis, was arraigned Monday on charges of third-degree assault. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she tried everything to protect her son, Clayton, including change his high school. But when all of her efforts failed, the desperate mother drove to the home of 21-year-old Joshua Loyd -- her son's presumed heroin dealer -- and struck him with an aluminum bat. She claimed that she went to Loyd's home to tell him to stay away from her son and her family, but after witnessing Loyd retrieve an item from his car, she became fearful. That's when she returned to her car to get the bat.

"I don’t know if I can say that what I did was right,” Gavan told the Post-Dispatch. "But it was the only thing I could do in the moment."

A Facebook support page has generated to date, 640 “likes.”

Several people showed their support for Gavan outside the Jefferson County Courthouse.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” protester Nicole Vaporean told the Post-Dispatch. “The police should have done more.”

According to the report, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer said that while he understands Gavan’s frustration, police are still required to uphold the law.

“How can we as law enforcement turn our backs on someone who has been assaulted?” Boyer told the paper. “I understand her intentions, but we have laws.”

Below, Gavan relays the events that lead up to the incident: