Joint Investigation Leads to Arrest of Antarius Henderson, 23, in Bunnell Shooting that Left 20 Year Old Critical

Antarius Zynell Henderson, a 23-year-old resident of Bunnell, was arrested Friday in Palatka and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in the shooting that left a 20-year-old man–Henderson’s–neighbor in critical condition the night of March 16, following a physical fight. Henderson had been fighting with someone else. The victim attempted to record the fight on his phone. He was never armed.

The shooting incident in Bunnell’s South Anderson Street involved three people firing some 30 or 31 shots (police recovered 31 shell casings): Henderson, the 19-year-old man he’d been fighting with, and a 17-year-old boy. Some of the residents around the scene of the shooting, including young children, hid in their bathrooms as bullets flew.

The incident is  related to the brawl that took place two weeks earlier on the same street, according to Bunnell Police Chief Dave Brannon, an incident that resulted in the arrest of two juveniles and four adults, including Henderson. Henderson at the time was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.




The origin of the feud remains unclear but Henderson’s arrest report following the shooting alludes to an altercation where Henderson had knocked over the mother of one of the other shooters.

Bunnell police, especially detective Shane Groth, who led the investigation and conducted most of the follow-up, and Flagler County Sheriff’s detectives, interviewed numerous people, including some involved in the shooting, witnesses of the incident, and relatives and residents of the area around the incident. Several of them spoke with law enforcement and provided key details, while some declined to speak. One witness placed himself at the scene and was seen near one of the shooters, but he would not identify the shooter to police. By Friday, investigators had gathered sufficient evidence to arrest Henderson, but the investigation continues and may lead to further arrests.

Henderson’s arrest affidavit details the incident and the subsequent investigation.

A review of surveillance footage from the Housing Authority indicated that several people had gathered around 10:23 p.m. on March 16 at the intersection of South Anderson and East Drain Street, and that at least two people other than Henderson also fired a gun as they were fleeing the scene into the woods. One of them had been allegedly sending threatening messages to Henderson, according to a witness Bunnell police spoke with.




The 911 dispatch center received several calls after 10:30 p.m. regarding the shooting. The victim himself, Z.T., had managed to make his way to a house on East Drain Street. Once Bunnell police and Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies responded, he told them a man he referred to by his street name of “Duke” had shot him and fled in a Mercedes. The victim was then flown to Halifax hospital. He has survived, but went through several surgeries and lost a kidney, according to the police chief.

At the hospital, the victim provided some of the more precise details of the incident. He’d been walking home to Hymon Circle when he witnessed a fight at the intersection of East Drain and South Anderson. He named five people at the scene, including the two brawlers. As he watched, he started recording the fight, but stopped when the fight escalated and opted to keep walking home. As he was in the middle of East Drain, near Carver Gym, he saw Henderson walk toward a silver Mercedes, from where another man emerged and handed Henderson a gun.

In the victim’s telling, Henderson then turned toward him–the victim, not the person he was fighting–yelled “I got you fuck n—” and fired two shots, hitting him above his right hip and on the left side of his body. given the circumstances–and the alleged intent–it isn’t clear why the charge is merely aggravated battery with a deadly weapon as opposed to attempted murder.

The victim then sought help and refuge at a house on East Drain Street, whose Ring Doorbell recorded the encounter.




The video the victim had taken corroborated his account of the incident and confirmed the presence of certain individuals there. But the victim refused to have his phone searched.

Law enforcement used surveillance footage from city-run, live spy cameras and the sheriff’s license plate readers to read the plate of the Mercedes the victim had referred to, leading to its Palm Coast owner.

Police surveilled the house and saw some activity involving people in and around the Mercedes, including the passing of a cell phone from a man who’d driven up in a BMW.  Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies executed a traffic stop on the vehicle (the cause of the traffic stop is unclear). Interviews with the occupants revealed, according to their telling, that Henderson had spoken with them earlier in the day and told them of an impending fight. A sheriff’s report detailed that Henderson is alleged to have explicitly said that he was going to “scrap some n—.”

The occupants of the Mercedes then drove to Hymon Circle where Henderson gave them some of his belongings, among them his cell phone and a black handgun.

The fight took place. Immediately afterward, Henderson returned to the Mercedes and took the gun. One of the occupants told police that he heard several shots, so he fled with one other occupants and went home to Palm Coast in the R-Section, where a third individual arrived in the BMW and handed over Henderson’s cell phone.

Following the shooting, a resident of South Bunnell who is closely related to Henderson told law enforcement that she was scared for her life, and that since the brawl earlier this month, neighbors had been threatening her life and the lives of family members, including that of Henderson, in person and through social media.

According to a Bunnell police release issued just after midnight this morning, Henderson’s vehicle was spotted in the Palatka area.  Putnam County sheriff’s deputies located the vehicle at the River Crest Motel, 295 Highway 17 in East Palatka.  Henderson and a person unrelated to this case were in the vehicle and detained.  Henderson was arrested on an active arrest warrant and booked into the Putnam County jail.




One of the other shooters was interviewed until his mother ceased the interview, requesting legal representation. He had by then said he did not have the gun, nor did he know where the gun was.

Following the two drive-by shootings in 2022 that took the lives of two 16-year-old Bunnell residents who had just been bystanders–Keymarion Hall  and Noah Smith–the Bunnell City Commission approved the installation and re-activation of surveillance cameras in South Bunnell that were used in the investigation. It had done so several years before, but the cameras had been turned off until their more recent reactivation.

Brannon in the release extended appreciation for the sheriff and his investigative division along with Putnam’s sheriff. “Also, I want to thank Bunnell Police Detective Sergeant Shane Groth and Detective Jeff Traylor, who took the video evidence and worked tirelessly to track down leads and witnesses to successfully put this case together,” Brannon said. “Technology makes the difference time and again, and this is one more example.  I applaud our Mayor and Commissioners for their resolve to fund these video cameras to help our police department to both deter and solve violent crime.  These cameras made an otherwise difficult case solvable.”

If anyone has additional information related to this case, please contact Detective Sergeant Shane Groth at (386) 600-7950, or to remain anonymous, call CrimeStoppers at 1-888-277-TIPS (8477).