A Fort Lauderdale man jumped into a river to try to avoid deputies after he allegedly carjacked a person at gunpoint near Daytona Monday night, authorities said.
The incident happened just before 9 p.m. when the victim said a man asked him for a ride in Daytona Beach Shores, Volusia County Sheriff’s Office officials said.
But the man pulled out a gun, ordered the victim out of the car and then drove off in the car before he ditched it and jumped into the Halifax River.
The suspect, later identified as 34-year-old Grant Hagood-James, of Fort Lauderdale, was spotted swimming up to the deck of a restaurant in Port Orange, authorities said.
He then ran through the restaurant and threw away his shirt before jumping back into the river and hiding in some mangroves, officials said.
Multiple law enforcement agencies joined in the suspect search by air, by boat, and on the ground.
Aerial footage released by the sheriff’s office shows part of the search for Hagood-James, and bodycam footage shows a deputy telling him to surrender.
“If not, we’re gonna send a dog and you’re gonna get bit,” the deputy says.
Hagood-James was eventually located and taken into custody in the mangroves.
Later in the video, Hagood-James is heard asking the deputies for a cigarette.
“No, you just said you were having a heart attack and you want a cigarette?” one deputy says.
“There were alligators out there, crocodiles,” Hagood-James said in the video. “Someone kept saying there were crocodiles, it scared the s— out of me.”
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office
Grant Hagood-James
Hagood-James was booked into jail on an armed carjacking charge.
Authorities said the victim wasn’t injured and his car was found in a Port Orange neighborhood. A gun was found nearby, officials said.