“If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly,” the 28-year-old man might have said, as Diogenes, antiquity’s most famous public masturbator, did.
This latest Diogenes (*) was caught in the act a little after midnight this morning by the front door at Taco Bell near Culver’s on State Road 100 in Palm Coast.
His arrest lengthens a streak of streakers and strokers that began less than a month ago with the arrest of a 33-year-old man at Chick-fil-A–also on State Road 100–for allegedly exposing his penis enwrapped in a speed-activated self-abusing contraption to a drive-thru attendant who was either 14 or 15. He now faces a second-degree felony.
That was followed barely more than a week ago with the arrest of a devotee of Ellianos Coffee on State Road 100 for allegedly using a $20 bill in place of palm or contraption for a little Jackson action on his illegally exposed tender. He is accused of using the hard currency in full view of one of the coffee shop’s drive-thru window attendants. The attendant was an adult. But since the man had been convicted of a similarly solo offense stemming from an incident in the Target shopping center parking lot in 2023, he, too, now faces a felony charge.
This morning’s Diogenes was spotted by a witness who was inside Taco Bell, walking toward the bathroom when, passing by the window, he saw the 28-year-old “jerking it” with one hand while holding and looking at a phone in his left hand. The right hand was making one of the most universally known movements known to man, boys, simians and not a few envious females since the beginnings of hominid time. In this case, it was almost 1 a.m. The witness called the cops.
When a Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy arrived, he observed the man “hunched over by the front door with a phone in his left hand and his penis in his right hand,” the deputy reported in the man’s arrest report. “As I initiated my vehicle’s spotlight onto the male, I could visually see his exposed sexual organs in his right hand.”
The moment Diogenes noticed him, he immediately pulled up his pants–actually, three pairs of shorts–and lowered his sweatshirt. He did not light a cigarette. The two men spoke. Diogenes told the cop–Joshua Barrett, who made news in late February for his part in de-escalating what could have been a deadly situation for a man with a replica gun–that he had huddled up to the Taco Bell door merely to use the restaurant’s WiFi because the Starbucks WiFi nearby was no longer working.
Asked why his pants were down when the deputy pulled up, the man said he was cleaning himself. “I had stuff on my balls and I was itchy,” he said. The deputy noted that Diogenes had been standing in a public area, in full view of vehicles, pedestrians, traffic and employees of Taco Bell, who told the deputy that there was no surveillance video footage of the crunchwrap.
The man was charged with a first-offense count of exposure of sexual organs, a misdemeanor that nevertheless drew a surprisingly harsh $5,000 bond from County Judge Andrea Totten at his first-appearance hearing this morning. (The original Diogenes is the father of cynicism. He would not have approved.) He remains at the county jail, which lists his home address as a residence in Port St. Lucie.
(*) Except in some circumstances, FlaglerLive does not generally identify individuals accused of misdemeanors.
Using Common Sense says
What is going on in this City???
Laurel says
It always baffles me that none of these guys stop and think “What the hell am I doing?”