TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida man is accused of attacking a teenage boy who was visiting for the Daytona 500, according to reports.
St. Petersburg police officer accused of domestic battery, put on parental leave
According to an arrest affidavit, officers were dispatched to South Ocean Avenue at around 10:08 p.m. after it was reported that someone was slashed in the throat with an “edged weapon.”
Police said witnesses, including the boy’s parents, told them that Jermaine Lynn Long, 44, of Daytona Beach, slashed the boy’s throat with a box cutter after “lingering around [him] for a period of time.” Surveillance video showed a man matching Long’s description approaching the boy, who was on his phone, and “slashing in a horizontal manner across his neck.”
“We’re so lucky our son’s alive,” said Jerod Alan Clarke, the boy’s father, in an interview with WESH. “The doctor said if it would’ve been one millimeter deeper, we would probably be having a different conversation.”
Lori Nicole Clarke told WESH she saw Long have “a strange look in his eyes” and make a motion toward her son’s neck. At first, she thought he was stealing his phone…