Wild video shows cops tracking down Florida man who tried to evade arrest by swimming to small island
You can swim, but you can’t hide.
A Florida man who swam to a small island and hid out after he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend with a vodka bottle was arrested when police sailed to the isle and found him camping out in a tent, police said.
Newly released bodycam footage shows the moment on June 23 when officers in Port Orange, south of Daytona Beach, ride out to the island along the Intracoastal Waterway to confront Jeriel Joiner.
Earlier, Joiner had called police and dared them to arrest him, cops said.
After searching the islands — which are just inland from the Atlantic ocean — they found Joiner sleeping inside a green tent and ordered him to keep his hands up as they open the tent.
“What’s the problem,” Joiner — who was shirtless and wearing just boxers — repeatedly asked as officers cuffed him and led him toward the police boat.
The victim, who was not named, told police that Joiner hit her in the eye with a bottle of vodka and strangled her when they were at the beach.
“He said the devil wanted him to kill me,” she recalled.
Police noted that bystanders rushed in to stop Joiner and tried to hold him down before he managed to escape and swim off.
“Jeriel Joiner struck his girlfriend on the head with a handle of vodka, then proceeded to choke her by wrapping his hands around her throat,” police said in a statement.
“Joiner then subsequently continued to choke his girlfriend by wrapping a rope around her neck. Joiner’s girlfriend is believed to have sustained a broken arm as well during the incident,” the department added.
After fleeing the scene, police said they received a call from Joiner where he said he “beat up his old lady. Come and get me.”
Joiner was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, domestic battery by strangulation and felony battery.
