Christian Grasso had been in and out of jail almost a dozen times in Volusia and Flagler counties since 2005, including six times since last December, before he was shot on Christmas Eve on a street in Flagler Beach.
Grasso, 28, who usually lives with his mother at 2229 Daytona Ave. in Flagler Beach, was arrested and jailed in Flagler County last December on a charge of burglary and a charge of possessing a controlled substance. He got probation. He was jailed on another burglary charge in June. In early July, he was jailed in Volusia County on possession of Oxycodone pills without a prescription. He posted $6,000 bond. Later that month he was jailed in Flagler again for violating his probation. Three weeks ago he was jailed for possession of drug-cultivating paraphernalia. And on Christmas eve, he was jailed on two counts of violating his probation. He posted $2,000 bond.
Shortly afterward, he was shot in the back, a block away from his home, in the middle of South Central Avenue. A Flagler Beach police officer responded to reports of an argument and a shooting at 8:56 p.m. When the officer got there, he saw Grasso in the middle of the street. Grasso was bleeding but coherent. He told the officer he’d been pursued by three people in a white compact car who wanted his money–a heavyset white male, a black male with dreadlocks, and a woman, who drove the car. When he refused to hand over his wallet, he was shot. The police report notes the bullet entered his back “approximately 3 inches from the top if his butt crack.”
The bullet, Flagler Beach Lt. Frank Parrish said on Monday afternoon, was lodged close to the fifth vertebrae, and Grasso was still awaiting surgery at Halifax Hospital.
Parrish said Flagler Beach police and detectives from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office’s Criminal Investigation Division were interviewing “a couple of people” Monday afternoon, though Parrish did not specify who they were. Officially, the suspects are still at large.
The shooting took place between 20th and 21st Streets on South Central Avenue.
Ralph Belcher says
Ms. Sandy?
DLF says
Who do you think is picking up this guys medical bills? How can a guy be arrested 6 times in less than a year and still be roaming the streets, our liberal system is how it is done.
elaygee says
and now we have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax money for his health care.
Adrian says
obviously this was a dope deal gone bad. lol
Jarred says
Wow after reading this whole story in finding out the man shoot has such a huge criminal background in and out of jail all year for drugs and robbing people how would the police ever believe a word that comes out of his mouth? He shouldn’t have even been on the streets sounds like he’s nothing but trouble.
Orion says
Flagler County picks up all the medical bills, per State Law, on any criminal or inmate, whether they be innocent or quilty. In this case, even with him just being incarcerated, qualifies him and obligates the County. The County paid more than $1 million in inmate care last year alone. Nice, huh? A year or so ago, and inmate tried to get the County to pay for his kidney transpalant during his time in jail..But all arrests for alcoholism/mental are considered covered, and are performed by Stuart Marshman Services , which just happens to be on the same strreet as the jail in Bunnell..
Barney Smythe says
What ever happened to 3 strikes??
Thank Judge Hammond!!
Kevin says
Leave the poor fella alone. He looks nice and honest enough to be given more chances:o)
Paula says
Kevin… how many more chances?? Until this person who keeps up with the drug scene really hurts someone?? Jarred you are correct,unfortunatly…
katie sandy says
There r many incorrect statements in this article. He has prescriptions for everything bra been caught with. He was arrested 2 days b4 the shooting bc of a mix up with his probation. He is not a drug dealer bc he needs the medicine prescribed to him due to a plastic hip and metal rod in his leg. This article is very misleading and makes like he deserved this which he didn’t.
Barney Smythe says
No he didn’t deserve it and had he been in jail after screwing up his probation the first time, it won’t have happened at all!!
Elana Lee says
It doesn’t appear that there is very much humanity left to erode, based on some of these comments. A human being was shot in the back, the blood at the crime scene washed away quickly like a spilled soda on the sidewalk. Are crime scenes worked, justice meaded out, judgments pronounced based upon assumptions nowadays? What a cold, hard world we have become, and at the very season some claim to celebrate “love and peace and giving”.
John Smith says
starfire you are a joke. You want to pray for this jerk but make a comment about a families cat to be stirfry. you might want to pray for forgivness from this family after that ridiculous remark.
john wilson says
no doubt he will roam the streets again…he knew his shooter’s, he probably owed money or sold bogus dope or both….he kept posting bail over the years i guess mama is loaded.
Barney Smythe says
Good to see that you’re out of jail Elana. Are the sons still in?
NortonSmitty says
This kid is obviously addicted, probably through drugs prescribed for his serious injuries. I don’t know his history or if he was worth a spit before, but passing laws to incarcerate addicts that only allow our Republican state government to show what hard asses they are on crime costs you big time money. Think about that as you cheer them on and call for throwing away the key. And once you put them in jail, as a civilized country you are responsible for their illnesses and injuries. Even the third world agrees with that. .Even hiring the lowest bidder to perform minimal services is expensive. There has to be a better way to go. Treatment, detox, psycotherapy, whatever. It’s all cheaper than maximum security incarceration and then turning the addict out on the street uncured.
I’m going to re-post a comment I made earlier about the prescription drug crisis in this country and why it’s happening now. Read it and think this could be your children, cousins neighbors or even yourself under the right circumstances. Will repost as next comment.
NortonSmitty says
Re-Post from Sherriff Fleming Press conference on Pill Mills and Pill Ring bust:
One thing that’s never mentioned is the role of the big pharmaceutical companies in this charade. In the ’90′s the patents ran out on the first generation of opiate-based pain meds, Percodan and Percocet being the best known ones. They sent their best chemists into the labs and told them that for the next generation of pills, all of the addictive agents they previously tried to remove, this time we put in as much as we can, and quadruple the price. Worked like a charm. Sales are through the roof (The High their stockholders are addicted to).
Starting in the early ’90′s with Vicodan (Even Brett Farve got hooked!) and more so with the later Loritabs and Oxycontin (Rush Limbaugh’s drug of choice) they really raised the addiction ante. I personally know several people, mostly women, who started taking them thinking it was like taking a Vallium to calm them down and find themselves a few months later taking six or more every day @ $20 each! That’s a thousand dollar a week habit! Counting them up, three went on Methadone treatments to quit, one died and two lost everything and are basically homeless. But still buying Watson Pharmacuticals most profitable concoction ever.
Ask any cop, they’re seeing people addicted they have never seen before. It’s so powerful there are Grandmothers holding up drug stores when the 60 pills they get from medicare doesn’t quite last til the end of the month anymore for some strange reason. And you can’t tell me this isn’t by design.
So we do the dance like the one above and pretend we’re Serious and Concerned and Doing Something. But funny, unlike all of the previous “epidemics” we’ve seen, there is no Federal money coming to the state and local police to set up task forces and raids and such like we’ve seen for weed and coke and other bad stuff. Call me a cynic, but I believe it might have something to do with the millions and millions of dollars Big Pharma spends in Washington every year on campaign donations and lobbying. While people die, lose everything and are jailed for life for “Abusing” a legal drug, which is working as intended.
Do we have a great Government or what?
Elana Lee says
Norton Smitty is absolutely right. There was a recent conference in which the FDA met with Big Pharma, and families of loved ones who had died from the oxycontin/roxycontin, but the FDA had numerous excuses for why they will not pull these synthethic morphines off the market. As many know, allegedly they were originally designed for end-stage hospice patients, because it was a given that addiction would happen. However addiction was not an issue because the patients for whom it was prescribed had only 6 months or less to live, and it was a compassionate thing to do. Having worked with patients addicted to heroin, they report that withdrawals from oxycontin/roxycontin are much worse than from heroin, and individuals who seek treatment for opiate addiction now – the percentage addicted to the synthetic morphines (oxy/roxy) is now greater than those addicted to heroin. Yes, a big thank you to Big Pharma, who greases the palms of not only our government but the FDA as well. Just look at how fast the FDA pulled Tylenol off the shelves when 3 people died a few years back. However, many times that number have died from these drugs and the FDA has nothing to offer but excuses. It’s the Golden Rule, and Big Pharma has the gold.
Elana Lee says
Norton Smitty, you refer to this as an epidemic, again I agree with you and take it one step further. Unlike genetically engineered anthrax, these are the perfect biological weapons. Think about it. This is an optimal way to cripple a nation, rather have them cripple themselves. And in times passed people feared the water supply being poisoned with a bacterium or a virus. Maybe it’s far-fetched to imagine it coming through the water supply (lol) however slowly but surely, once you have a nation addicted, you have a “nation under sedation” and the people are very controllable.
NortonSmitty says
I don’t know, Elana, I still wonder about the water supply. A few years ago, every paper in the country had a story about “Trace Amounts” of Prozac, Zoloft and other psychotropic drugs that were found in tests of the water supplies all over the country. The explanation: People are flushing their unused medicines down the toilet and it is getting back into the water supplies through the filtration systems. It didn’t pass the bullshit test then or now. At $20 per pill, couldn’t see that volume.
But it is a perfect cover story to get out so if there ever is proof of our water being drugged, they can just say Old News, we explained that to you years ago, look! But our Government would never do that.
Elana Lee says
As I mentioned not long ago, it will be interesting about 300 years from now to look back at this period of time and see what the heck was really going on. Scholars will be astonished as they read about the early turn of the century, and how the answers were right in front of us and we didn’t see them. Or were afraid to look.
NortonSmitty says
If you look hard enough, you can find out now. Google “REX 84” or COG
SELLIN ROCXIES says
thats my ddawg chris
NortonSmitty says
Did you get your Ddawg addicted slimeball? I hope he rolls on your sorry ass for 10 long with Bubba. I’ll send a finn to your commissary every year for Vasiline.
Starfyre of Flagler Chat says
“John Smith says:
December 30, 2010 at 6:35 am
starfire you are a joke. You want to pray for this jerk but make a comment about a families cat to be stirfry. you might want to pray for forgivness from this family after that ridiculous remark.”
***Sigh***
Elana Lee says
Norton, I googled REX 84. Haven’t gone to COG yet. I’m convinced. I knew something wasn’t right with New Orleans, knew things haven’t been exactly right for a long time. Seems like ti could be adding up, but still all the pieces won’t fit into the puzzel for another 300 years or so. I hope we can read the books in the library like in they did in the movie City of Angels!
Rev Paul james says
Look at his rap sheet five of those times was from driving on suspended which is a felony at that time do Obama taking office. How is Amanda get shot in the back on Christmas Eve and robbed be labeled as a lower class of victim and be sent to prison for more time than the person that shot him that’s the question that should be asked and if you dug deeper the man had insurance and paid his own medical bills