Felon Several Times Over Accused of Brutalizing and Seizing Woman at Bunnell’s Country Store

Two years ago Henry G. Brock was finishing a three-year sentence in state prison for aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest with violence and felony battery. Four years ago he’d been in a stand-off with Bunnell cops and Flagler deputies in an apparent attempt at suicide by cop, until a Taser shot neutralized him.

Seven years ago, after yet another stand-off with sheriff’s deputies, he shot himself in the arm thinking it might deflect accusations of burglary and assault. And those were only the more serious incidents he’s been involved in over the past 10 years, a time span that saw him booked at the county jail more than a dozen times. He’s only 29.

Saturday morning, he was arrested again, this time following a brutal encounter with a 42-year-old woman he calls his fiancee–an encounter captured on a surveillance video at the Country Store in the western part of the county, and that left the woman unconscious and bloody after she attempted to escape. Brock was arrested after a low-speed car chase through Mondex, or Daytona North. His first words when he got out of the car were: “Are you going to shoot me?”

Two deputies had their gun drawn, but one of them immediately recognized Brock and “established rapport,” according to his arrest report: his well-known criminal past, for once–his familiarity to deputies–helped de-escalate the situation, as did his brief compliance. Once handcuffed and held in the back of a patrol car, Brock allegedly resumed acts of violence, intimidation and demolition.

The Saturday morning incident began shortly after 6 a.m. when 911 got a call from the store requesting police to respond to a disturbance. What took place within the store is not clear. What took place in the parking lot, in dawn’s purplish light, is disturbingly clear, thanks to the store’s surveillance video: A silver Cadillac appears to be either backing out or getting ready to leave the lot. Brock is seen rushing out of the store. He body-slams himself on the hood of the car then immediately starts pounding the windshield on the driver’s side with his fist, rearing back and punching four times with such force that the windshield begins to crumple. As he pounds a fourth time, a blond woman gets out of the driver’s side. Brock immediately drops to the ground, catches the Cadillac’s open door and slams it against the woman, who falls or crouches behind the vehicle.

At that point she is no longer visible. But Brock is, from his torso up. At first he looks like a demented boxer, throwing punches with his right and left arm until he grabs the woman and slams her to the ground, parallel with the driver’s side, just out of view of the camera. He then positions himself above her and methodically punches at least twice that the camera can see, then continues to flail against her before seeming to place her in the car as an SUV pulls up near by. He gets in the car, and the footage stops.

A deputy was about a mile away at County Roads 305 and 302 and rushed to the store, emergency lights blazing and arriving at the Country Store just as Brock was pulling out. Brock headed west on Mahogany Boulevard and “refused to stop for several miles,” according to the arrest report, weaving across the road to the point of skirting the ditches on either side. A civilian driving a gray Dodge pick-up truck then blocked the Cadillac’s path, forcing it to stop. The deputy used a PA system to order Brock out of the car. At first Brock didn’t comply. After a second deputy arrived and both had their guns drawn, Brock stepped out and asked his question. But the second deputy had recognized him. He was handcuffed.

The woman was also initially handcuffed as the deputies hadn’t yet established that she was the victim. Once they did so, they uncuffed her. But she was very confused, refused medical attention, and couldn’t say what had taken place. Her scalp was matted with blood (her skull was “all lumped up,” one paramedic said), her right eye was swollen, her feet were bleeding and bruised. As a deputy photographed her injuries, Brock yelled out of the patrol car where he was being held. He told the woman not to allow herself to be photographed. He then started pounding the door of the patrol car with his feet, damaging the door.

“This incident could have had a very different outcome,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release issued this morning. (The sheriff is also quoted as saying that he believed Brock’s “intention was to kill his victim,” but the charges don’t include attempted murder.) “Had a witness not called us and our deputies not located them who knows what else may have happened. This is an extremely violent person who has been arrested multiple times. He needs to be locked-up for a very long time before he actually kills somebody.”

Brock, of 1144 Cedar Street, was charged with Domestic Aggravated Battery, False Imprisonment, Felony Criminal Mischief, Tampering with a Witness, Driving While License Suspended, and Fleeing and Eluding. He is being held at the county jail on $30,500 bond.