Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Connor Joseph O’Neil, 31, was arrested early this morning after a deputy reportedly found him loitering behind a closed office building at about 4 a.m.
At about 4:13 a.m. on December 16, an Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputy reported that he saw O’Neil “quickly” leave the Baymont Inn on an electric scooter, apparently after seeing the deputy’s patrol vehicle. The deputy noted, “This is a documented high crime, high drug motel.”
A short time later, the deputy reported seeing O’Neil standing in a dark area behind a closed office building nearby; the deputy noted that vehicles and businesses in that area are frequently burglarized and O’Neil’s actions “established reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal activity and trespassing while loitering & prowling at a time in a manner not usual for law-abiding individuals.”
The deputy reported that O’Neil seemed extremely nervous when he spoke to him and was sweaty despite the cool weather; he wrote that O’Neil stayed hunched over the scooter, which had several exposed wires and a disconnected handle. The deputy reported that O’Neil was unable to provide a legitimate reason to be at the building and said he had just visited his girlfriend at the Baymont Inn but did not know her name. O’Neil also reportedly said he borrowed the scooter from a friend but did not know the friend’s name, either.