Sunday Night Standoffs: Deputies Contend With Armed Men in Hammock and W-Section

Update: The charges against Val Mateyshin were dropped on Sept. 15, 2015.

Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies were locked in two nearly simultaneous standoffs with armed men Sunday night, one in Palm Coast’s W Section and one in the Hammock. Both stand-offs, which began after domestic confrontations, ended peacefully, with an arrest in the W Section and no arrest in the Hammock.

The W-Section incident took place at 90 Whippoorwill Drive in Palm Coast, where Val Mateyshin, 32, was arrested shortly after midnight Monday morning on felony charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault domestic violence after an argument with his girlfriend and after he allegedly told two women, “If the cops show up I’m going to put a gun to your head.”

The incident took place late Sunday when Mateyshin, 32, and his girlfriend got into an argument. What led to it was the discovery—by the girlfriend’s roommate—of several emails from other women on Mateyshin’s tablet. The roommate called Mateyshin at work. Mateyshin called her names and said he was coming back to the house to get his stuff. She told him not to. She put his belongings in the garage. When she refused to open the door, he allegedly busted the door down to get in and pushed the roommate. (Meanwhile his girlfriend had called her sister, who then called police.)

At that point made his alleged threat. When police asked the roommate to clarify whether the threat was made against Mateyshin’s girlfriend alone, or against both women in the house, the roommate said “Val said he would put a bullet in both of our heads,” according to his arrest report.

Mateyshin, according to the roommate, then walked into the garage and retrieved a black belt with a gun holster and a gun before walking back into the residence.

By then police were at the scene, and a deputy would later report hearing the argument—and the alleged uttered threat. A deputy who was looking in at the window reported seeing Mateyshin walk into the garage, which was visible from the window, and retrieve a black object. At that point deputies informed dispatch that there might be a hostage situation. The SWAT team was dispatched as deputies continued monitoring the situation while the dispatch center tried various means of making contact with the residents inside.

When the occupants of the house started hearing the cops outside, Mateyshin allegedly ran off to hide the gun. The roommate was first to leave the house. Some time elapsed as deputies made several announcements on a PA system, calling on the remaining occupants to leave the house. Mateyshin then got out, followed by his girlfriend.

Mateyshin allegedly denied having a gun in the house, the arrest report states, though a deputy subsequently located the 9-mm firearm, loaded with four rounds. Once arrested, Mateyshin started banging his head against the prisoner compartment in the patrol vehicle, then said his head hurt and he needed medical attention. (Deputies don’t take chances when suspects claim to have medical issues and always summon rescue units or take the suspect to a hospital for clearance. Suspects know that, and at times use the fact to delay going to jail.) As a rescue unit was summoned, Mateyshin started to kick the rear window in the patrol car. When the rescue arrived, he declined medical attention. He was placed in leg restraints and taken to the jail, where he was booked in shortly after 2 this morning. He remains at the jail on $10,000 bond.

The Hammock incident unfolded at 36 Armand Beach Drive, starting in early evening, after a 59-year-old woman and her 50-year-old boyfriend, Robert Block (whose address on the incident report is listed as being on Llowick Court in palm Coast) got into an argument. As his girlfriend told the account to police, they’d been drinking that day, they’d argued about his “attitude,” he heard her call him a dick as she spoke to her daughter on the phone, though what apparently escalated the matter was when she put the definition of “narcissist” in front of him, and told him that’s what he was.

Brock got upset, broke a lamp and a computer printer. His girlfriend told him she was over it and called police. He went a bedroom and, according to his girlfriend, retrieved a gun. (When he was a teenager, she told police, his father committed suicide.)

Numerous deputies took up positions around the house and the scene was turned over to a crisis negotiator, with numerous attempts to make contact by phone and the PA system. Deputies saw Brock pace back and forth. “According to FCSO Communication,” the incident report states, “he had made contact with a female (known only as Carol) in New Jersey making statements that he was no going outside, he had a gun with fourteen shots and also mentioned something about a body bag.”

Finally, Brock and deputies made contact. Deputies offered medical assistance. Brock declined it. And Brock’s girlfriend was taken to the Microtel, where she was advised to spend the night.