Palm Coast Man Arrested for Firing Gun at a Dictionary During a Fight With Girlfriend

The semi-holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s led to several arrests in Flagler County for drunk driving and domestic violence, of which two were especially notable, both on Dec. 29, as one involved the firing of a handgun and the other entailed alleged violence against a firefighter and Flagler Beach police.

The first incident took place in Palm Coast, unfolding in early evening and into the night, before Arnold D. Boggs, 48, was arrested on four charges, including using a firearm while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Boggs, of 116 Bayside Drive in Palm Coast, had been living with his girlfriend for a year and a half. That day, she told him she was planning to move out. According to her account of the incident, he’d been drinking since before she got home from work late that afternoon, and a verbal altercation followed. But both calmed down and decided to have dinner at Mezzaluna, the pizzeria at European Village. There, Boggs allegedly again became agitated and turned “verbally aggressive” toward the 52-year-old alleged victim, at one point, according to the arrest report, “using the back of the hand to strike [the woman] in the chest area twice.”

Back at the Bayside house, the verbal brawling continued, with Boggs allegedly being “verbally abusive and making threats” toward the woman, according to the report. “You know what comes after you move out?” he is alleged to have told her. “Death, death comes after you move out.” At one point he cornered the alleged victim, preventing her to move away from the argument, though the woman was so distraught when she recounted the incident to authorities that she could not remember all that had taken place and been said, nor was able to write down a statement. She had been shaking, and on one or two occasions seemed close to passing out as she spoke to deputies.

During the altercation, she claimed, Boggs retrieved his Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380 handgun from his nightstand “and walked to the front door area and blocked the doorway,” the report states, then “turned to his left and opened the door to a linen closet located next to the front doorway and retrieved an Encarta World English Dictionary, placed it on the floor in front of him and fired a single round into the dictionary.”

The alleged victim at that moment had been in the kitchen, unable to call 99, but she texted her daughter, told her of Boggs using the gun and asked her to “please send someone.” A deputy was able to contact her by phone. Boggs took the phone and began speaking with the deputy, all the while, according to the alleged victim’s statement, attempting to conceal the gun by removing the magazine and placing the weapon in the fridge. He also attempted to find the shell casing, but could not. He allegedly yelled at the woman that he did not fire his gun.

“Mr. Boggs,” the report states, “has a history of pulling out firearms and using them in an intimidating manner while being in a verbal altercation” with the alleged victim, “but has never discharged one until today and the incidents were never reported to the sheriff’s office du to [the woman] fearing that Mr. Boggs would retaliate.”

In 2011, Boggs was charged with domestic battery, a first degree misdemeanor, and tampering with a witness or a victim in a misdemeanor proceeding, a third degree felony, and criminal mischief, also a third-degree felony. All charges were dropped. On the 29^th, he was charged with aggravated assault domestic violence and false imprisonment, both third-degree felonies, domestic battery, a first-degree misdemeanor, and using a firearm while under the influence, a second-degree misdemeanor. He has been ordered by a judge to have no contact with the victim. He was released on $6,500 bond.

The second, unrelated incident took place in Flagler Beach a few hours earlier the same day, starting when a 53-year-old resident of North 3^rd Street in Flagler Beach called a friend to ask to be taken to Stewart Marchman, the treatment facility. But he was abusive when Flagler Beach police showed up at his door. The man had apparently been drinking, and “stumbled” to the door, according to his arrest report, calming down after opening it, only to allegedly push Alan Forehand, a 21-year-old firefighter, triggering a scuffle. He was allegedly abusive of the cops, calling them “pigs,” as well as of Flagler Beach, saying he was from New York.

It took the intervention of several Flagler Beach police officers, including that of Police Captain Matthew Doughney, to hold down the man, who by then was facing arrest for assaulting a law enforcement officer. He was taken to Florida Hospital Flagler, where he refused treatment—a doctor had advised a CAT scan of his head—before he was booked at the Flagler County jail on three felony charges—battery on a firefighter, battery on a police officer, and resisting arrest with violence. On Monday evening, he remained at the county jail on $4,500 bond.

It was his first arrest since 2000. He was arrested that year for aggravated assault and criminal mischief. The case was diverted to pre-trial intervention, which the man completed to the court’s satisfaction in April 2001.