Deputy Injured By Black Man Resisting Arrest

Deputy Philip Conway responded to a scene after reports of a violation of injunction for stalking. The suspect, Leslie Pitter, 42, has a history of resisting arrest, assaulting police and injunctions resulting from domestic violence.

The deputy had been on the force less than a year.

Pitter refused to get on the ground. Conway had to pull his Taser at one point to get Pitter on the ground in a position where he could be handcuffed.

Pitter kept yelling out, refusing to put both his hands behind his back so he could be handcuffed.

Deputies moved in to cuff him but a struggle ensued. Pitter claimed he wasn’t resisting and yelled out, “look at what you’re doing to me,” then, Pitter, who weighs 230 pounds, tossed Deputy Conway over his shoulder. Deputy Conway’s shoulder dislocated and he sustained a laceration to the chin.

Pitter said to the body cameras, “I can’t breathe” many times, words made famous in the arrest and choke-hold of Eric Garner, the New Yorker who died in a 2014 encounter with police.

“I had a problem with you and now I know you can’t beat me he was just protecting you,” said Pitter. “I know you are weak as hell I just tried you, I’m not threatening you I’m just telling you, you’re weak as hell.” “If he didn’t come and save you I would have had your ass.”

The deputies–with Conway’s shoulder out of joint and Conway likely in more pain than Pitter, who, calmer now, spoke to the deputies–further reason with Pitter, explaining to him why he was being arrested.

Conway had to be taken to Florida Hospital Flagler and be sedated to have his shoulder relocated.

At the jail, Pitter continued the taunting, bragging that he’d put a deputy in the hospital.

Pitter was held at the Flagler County Detention Facility without bond.