He ‘jumped in that b**ch and took off.’ He’s now in jail
A Florida Keys teen faces felony drug charges after police investigating a stolen golf cart found him with two loaded handguns in his pockets after a brief foot chase Monday morning.
It’s the second time since June the boy was arrested on an illegal weapons charge, and in that case, he was arrested with a man who has since told police about a group of locals stealing golf carts and other small electric vehicles in Key Largo. The carts are then sold for drug money.
After this week’s arrest, Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies also questioned the 16-year-old boy, who is not being named because he‘s a minor, about a gang operating at Coral Shores High School, known as “38,” according to the arrest report. He denied involvement with the gang, but said “he grew up with those guys and knew them,” Detective Benjamin Elmore stated in his report.
The golf cart was reported stolen from the Holiday Inn at mile marker 99.7. Once deputies arrived at the motel, they received a call from a woman near mile marker 100.8 who said that there was a golf cart in the woods near her property. She said her dogs began barking at 4:30 a.m. and she went outside to see a skinny male in a “yellow hoodie” quickly leave the area on a bicycle.
Sheriff’s Office Sgt. James Hager saw a male wearing a yellow hooded sweatshirt at the Speedway gas station at mile marker 99.6 later in the morning, his report said. The teen got off his bicycle and went inside the store. Hager asked him to come outside. He said that the boy acted nervous, with his hands in his pockets, and looked like he was about to run away.
After Hager told him three times to take his hands out of his pockets, the boy ran away toward a nearby park, the report said.
Hager shot his Taser stun gun at him, but missed the first time.
“As he ran, he was digging in his waistband as if he was trying to discard or retrieve something,” Hager wrote.
Hager shot his Taser at him again, this time hitting him with the weapon’s prongs. After cuffing the boy, Hager asked him why he ran. “I’m scared,” the boy replied. Asked why, he said, “I have two firearms on me,” the report said.
Hager found a Smith and Wesson 9 mm pistol with one round in the chamber and a fully-loaded 15-round magazine in one pocket. In the other, the deputy found a loaded .22 caliber revolver, the report said. He also found a vaping cartridge containing marijuana oil instead of nicotine.
Deputies took the boy to Mariners Hospital to be checked out for the Taser shot. He was released to his parents’ custody, the report said.
His parents brought him Tuesday to the sheriff’s office in Plantation Key, where he was arrested and handed over to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. A Juvenile Justice officer told deputies that he would likely have to be locked up for “at least 21 days,” Elmore wrote in his report.
He faces two counts of underage possession of a firearm, two counts of carrying a concealed weapon without a license and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription.
The boy’s father, whom police say legally owns the weapons, said he stores the ammunition separately.
The boy told deputies he was able to find the bullets and load the guns before leaving the house while his parents were out to dinner Sunday night. He said he did not intend to use the weapons, but carried them because “he just liked guns, according to Elmore’s report. He added that when he used drugs, especially pills, “he got very paranoid,” the report states.
Asked about the stolen golf cart, the boy told police he has back problems and “that he didn’t have a ride and he saw it so he ‘jumped in that bitch and took off,’” Elmore wrote.
In late June, the boy was arrested with other teens smoking marijuana in a car in the Newport Village subdivision. Police found two handguns in the car. The boy said one of them, a .38 caliber Glock, was his and that he found it in the Everglades and carried it for protection against a group of people who threatened him, according to the sheriff’s office.
One of the other teens in the car that night, Luke Townsend, has been arrested multiple times since the summer and was questioned in early November about several recent golf cart and electric vehicle thefts in the area. Townsend named five people he said were involved, and one of them may have sold a stolen golf cart to his attorney, Elmore, who is investigating that case, stated in his report.
