Bunnell Nights: “Smidge” Spearmon’s Two Crank 911 Calls and Two Stints in Jail

It’s one of those strange stories that get stranger with the telling. It would be stranger still if it weren’t happening in Bunnell, where police stories are plotted in an alternate universe all their own.

It was 2:41 a.m. the morning of Oct. 1 (Friday). Bunnell police officer Augustin Rodriguez was patrolling the 100 block of North Railroad Street when he saw Darren Spearmon and another individual running from the patrol car. It isn’t illegal to run in Bunnell. But it can seem suspicious in the middle of the night, when a cop is passing by. Rodriguez gave chase. He was unable to stop the other individual. He was able to stop Spearmon, who is a little person and goes by the nickname “Smidge.”

Rodriguez asked Smidge why he was running. Smidge, 21, of South Church St., said he wasn’t running and didn’t know what the officer was talking about. Rodriguez continued his questioning. “Take me to jail nigga, I will just bond out,” Smidge replied. Rodriguez reported that “during my conversation with the defendant, for no explicable reason, he blurted out his cell phone number.” But since no crimes were committed, Smidge was “released.”

An hour and a half later, dispatch received a 911 call. The caller immediately hung up. Dispatch called the number back. It went to voice mail. Dispatch informed Rodriguez of the call, and told him it was the same number from where a call had been placed to 911 at half past midnight. The caller at that time told dispatch that he had just been shot and beaten up on East Booe Street, Bunnell’s ground zero of crime. The caller then asked the dispatcher out on a date. “Gotcha sucka,” he then said, and hung up.

The call was made from the same number Smidge blurted out when he was being questioned by Rodriguez. At the time of that call, Rodriguez responded to the area of the physical disturbance that was being alleged but reported nothing unusual. Midnight pedestrians said nothing had been happening there.

About half an hour after Rodriguez’s initial encounter with Smidge, Rodriguez went back to the 100 block of North Railroad Street to check on the origins of the 911 hang-up, which had apparently come from Smidge’s phone. Smidge was sitting on he side of the road, waving his cell phone in the air. The police report does not specify what kind of cell phone it was. Rodriguez left his car and began a conversation with Smidge, asking him what his phone number was. Smidge gave one number. It was slightly different from the one he’d blurted out earlier, or the one that had been used to call 911. The officer asked for the phone number again. Smidge gave yet another number. Rodriguez was accompanied by another officer, who took out her cell phone and placed a call to the number Smidge had given out initially. His phone started ringing, and the light on the phone was clearly visible through his jeans pocket.

Officers managed to seize the phone. It’s not clear how, since it entailed an actual search. The call log on the phone showed that a call to 911 had been placed at 12:27 a.m. and again at 3:16. Smidge was arrested for making false 911 calls and taken to the Flagler County jail on $100 bond. True to his word, he bonded out.

Hours later, he was back in jail on a separate set of charges–unlawful assembly, loitering and criminal mischief. His bond was set at $2,000. He posted bond.