VIDEO: After Failed Carjacking Attempt, DeLand Suspect Charged With Threatening, Assaulting Deputies

Date Added: July 20, 2020 12:17 pm

Andrew Gant
Office of Public Affairs & Media Relations

AFTER FAILED CARJACKING ATTEMPT, DELAND SUSPECT CHARGED WITH THREATENING, ASSAULTING DEPUTIES

A DeLand man caught after an attempted carjacking Sunday afternoon is in jail on several other charges, too, after he spit at, threatened and head-butted Volusia deputies who took him into custody.

On Sunday afternoon, deputies and DeLand police responded to a report of an attempted carjacking. A 16-year-old boy told deputies he was riding in the car with his grandmother when an unknown male opened a back passenger door and got in the car in the area of East New York Avenue and Spring Garden Avenue. The suspect grabbed the victim by the arm and told her: "I need you to drive the car now or I will kill you."

Both grandmother and grandson were able to get out of the vehicle with the keys and get away from the suspect, Jeremy Bozarth (DOB 8/21/1991), who was soon spotted by law enforcement and taken into custody.

After he was placed in a patrol vehicle, Bozarth began to spit and strike his head against the partition. When a deputy attempted to place a spit mask on Bozarth, he started kicking and thrashing, and injured his toe. Deputies applied restraints to him to prevent further injuries, and Bozarth continued to resist and make several threats against the deputies involved. Bozarth head-butted a deputy in the forehead and also bit him on the wrist.

Bozarth was charged with attempted carjacking, burglary with battery, battery on a law enforcement officer, assault on a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer with violence, and threatening a law enforcement officer. His bond was $71,000 on those charges, and no bond on a violation of probation on a previous robbery conviction.

Bozarth's prior convictions include assault with a deadly weapon, domestic violence strangulation, aggravated battery on a pregnant person, home invasion and robbery with a firearm. He remains in custody at the Volusia County Branch Jail.