This morning, a diver continues searching for the handgun that Rowan Deputy J.E. Brindle threw into the water after he wrestled it away from Jerry Dean Brewer, 51, 10461 Linwood Southmont Road, Lexington.

Deputy Brindle and Deputy J.D. Dean were patrolling the lake on a personal watercraft near Goat Island around 6 p.m. when they stopped Brewer’s pontoon for a safety inspection, according to the report.

Brewer, wife Beverly Brady Brewer, 48, son Mathew Thomas Brewer, 20, and Linda W. Culler, 50, of 1606 Riverview Road, were cooperative while Brindle checked their life preservers.

During their interaction, Brindle noticed Jerry Brewer’s speech was slurred and he asked him to submit to a sobriety test since he was operating the boat.

Jerry Brewer declined to submit to the sobriety tests, so Brindle told him he was under arrest for boating while impaired. But Jerry Brewer began to flee from the deputies in the pontoon.

The deputies “maneuvered around him and stopped him again,” Sheriff George Wilhelm said.

Deputy S.A. Barnhardt, on a sheriff’s department boat, helped stop the pontoon from fleeing. “At that time, the two officers on the Jet Skis boarded the boat,” Wilhelm said.

Then, Jerry Brewer pulled a handgun on Brindle, according to the report.

“I reached for the barrel, turned the gun towards his abdomen and turned him around. I then twisted the gun from his hand and threw it in the water,” Brindle wrote in his report. Jerry Brewer was also sprayed with pepper spray to disable him.

“That is a tactic you are trained to do. You point the gun away from you and at the suspect. Once he (Brindle) wrestled it away, there were so many people on the boat he was afraid to just set it down they because they were already in an affray. And he didn’t want to throw it into our boat because he didn’t know how safe that was. So he threw it in the water.”

Jerry Brewer is in the Rowan CountyDetention Center under a $10,000 bond on charges of resist, delay and obstruct, carrying a concealed weapon, boating while impaired, felony assault on a law enforcement officer and felony assault on a law enforcement officer by pointing a gun.

His son, Mathew, and Linda Culler were charged with resisting a public officer. Jerry Brewer’s wife, Beverly, was charged with assault on a government official and resisting a public officer.

Deputies confiscated one cooler of beer and two coolers of liquor from the boat.

Davidson County Sheriff’s deputies and Wildlife Resource Officers assisted in the incident.