Jared W. Douglas, 19, Arrested in Stabbing at Holland Park After Week of Posturing Texts

Based on witnesses’ statements to Flagler County Sheriff’s detectives, the stabbing was the culmination of a week-long argument on SnapChat between the victim and an underage teen girl, and sexual allegations that the arrest report doesn’t explain. The victim and the girl had a confrontation at Holland Park, Douglas intervened, and the stabbing ensued. Douglas cooperated with authorities and described the incident in details that corroborated accounts by other witnesses.

One of those involved is dating Douglas. (The arrest report heavily redacts the identities of the victim and of witnesses, including the girl).

Detectives were aided by the presence of four witnesses at the scene of the stabbing, and surveillance cameras installed at the park, which traced the vehicle Douglas was driving–a red BMW convertible, its tag number visible on camera. The vehicle tracked authorities back to the Blare Castle address.

According to the arrest report, Douglas and the victim had been exchanging texts for a week “about causing harm to one another over a rumor of sexual allegations,” and that one of them had allegedly threatened the other of a stabbing if they were to run into each other.

Sunday afternoon Douglas, the girl and a friend drove to Holland Park in the convertible. While there, the victim saw the car and approached. The girl got out, there was an argument between them, with pushing and an open-handed slap (the arrest report redacts who did the slapping). Douglas told authorities he intervened at that point, giving his phone to a friend and telling him to “record this.”

Douglas and the victim then got into a confrontation in front of the car, when four unknown people approached and tried to engage in the confrontation. Douglas, who “usually keeps a knife on him for personal protection,” as he told detectives, took out the knife, his arrest report states, and stabbed the victim in the area of the lower chest and upper stomach.

Deputies were called to the scene at 6:30 p.m.




“He just stabbed me,” the victim is said to have exclaimed, at which point Douglas and his two friends got back into the car and returned to the Blare Castle house. Douglas asked one of his friends to take the knife and hide it. The friend handed it to someone else and said the same–hide it. The report does not disclose whether the knife was found. The weapon is described as “a smaller, silver, collapsible blade knife.”

Ten minutes later the trio decided to go to a friend’s house, but by then sheriff’s deputies had arrived at the property and set up a perimeter around it. Deputies secured all three without issues.

Douglas is charged with aggravated battery with permanent disfigurement while armed, a second-degree felony. He was booked at the Flagler County jail just before 11 p.m. on $25,000 bond, where he remains as of this writing.

“This situation should have never escalated to the point of a juvenile needing to be airlifted to the hospital for a stab wound over a social media fight! Really?” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “Thankfully this was an isolated incident and our team did a great job in quickly pulling resources, videos, and interviewing witnesses to track down the suspects and take the defendant into custody. We hope the victim has a speedy recovery. Parents, talk to your kids and teach them that violence is not a solution to an argument.”

Holland Park reopened partially in mid-December after more than a half-year closure due to the coronavirus.