The Florida Man sensation is an endless source of entertainment for people like me who enjoy seeing the stories of seriously dumb criminals. This story takes us to a small community called Holt, Florida. This is a two-part "Florida Man" story, so strap yourselves in.
Dusty wasn't too terribly difficult to find seeing as how when authorities were doing their deep search the first place they started was at his listed legal address and there he was! Dude was just out mowing the lawn, thinking that the day was going pretty well after his breakfast of vodka and meth, and when he spotted the Sherriff's squad cars he decided to make a break for it as fast as his John Deere riding lawn mower would take him.
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body-cam footage, sorry for grainy pic
Now I don't know if you have ever used a riding lawn mower but they are not very fast and this is by design because if they were fast, they wouldn't be able to cut the grass properly. I would imagine that most people can probably do a light jog and move faster than 90% of the non-industrial riding mowers on the market. So let's just say that it wasn't exactly a Hollywood style highway chase. While it is unclear if the officers caught him by driving or simply walking up to him, trust me when I say that either of these would have been very easy to accomplish.
According to deputies, Dusty still resisted arrest once they caught up to him by walking slightly faster than normal and they had to stun-gun him to get him to comply.
What makes this arrest even more amusing is the fact that the reason why there was a warrant out for Dusty in the first place is because he had been recorded on CCTV breaking into a sailboat enclosure months prior in order to steal a 40,000 dollar boat. This wasn't a huge boat because 40 grand doesn't get you very far in the sailboat world but this doesn't change the fact that it is still stolen.
The humorous part about this phase of the story is that Dusty was easily found on the stolen boat and he was just chillin on it. He wasn't trying to fence it for some quick cash, dude just wanted to have his own boat. When police approached him to inquire about the stolen boat he didn't talk, he just jumped off the boat into the nearby swamp and got away because the police boat was too big to pursue in the shallow water. It didn't much matter though because Dusty's identity was already known at that point. On the boat they found booze, and of course, meth.
This seems to be a recurring theme in many Florida arrests and in Dusty's case it was the same situation when he was arrested on his lawn mower. He was drunk, had an illegal handgun on his person, and a pipe with meth residue on it upon his arrest.
Dusty is currently in custody in Florida and was denied bail. I guess you could say that I kind of feel bad for the guy and all the other people out there that get wrapped up in meth. It really does seem to be the drug that makes people do the craziest stuff. Since all of Dusty's offenses are non-violent, he probably wont do very much time for this. Hope he can stay off the sauce once he is released.
