An 18-year-old man with an extensive juvenile criminal record was arrested Tuesday in DeLand after he held his friend at gunpoint in a car and forced him to flee from Volusia sheriff’s deputies. According to authorities, Davion Smith, was caught after bailing out from the car and running to a storage unit complex, where a deputy spotted him minutes later and took him into custody.
The incident began around 4:11 p.m. Tuesday when a deputy driving on S.R. 15A spotted a Mercury Grand Marquis that previously fled from him last week. Deputies attempted a traffic stop, and it appeared the driver was attempting to pull over, when deputies noticed a commotion inside the vehicle.
“The passenger began moving back and forth in the seat consistent with an individual removing a handgun from his waist band,” the deputy wrote in his report. Both deputies on the stop “recognized the action and became terribly concerned the incident was about to result in a shootout.”
Instead, they witnessed the driver trying to exit the vehicle, then the passenger grabbing him, pulling him back in, and pointing a handgun at the driver’s head. Then the car took off fleeing.
Deputies caught up with the vehicle a short distance away, in a parking lot at 880 N. Spring Garden Avenue, where the driver surrendered and cooperated fully. He explained he was trying to stop, but that Smith jumped on top of him, pressed the gas and drove the vehicle until they came to a stop. Meanwhile, another deputy spotted Smith at the storage complex and detained him while additional units responded.
On the ground next to the Grand Marquis, deputies recovered a handgun that was reported stolen in an armed robbery in DeLand in March. The suspect in that gunpoint robbery had a description similar to Smith’s. Inside the car, deputies found two baggies of heroin in the passenger door cubby.
Smith was charged with kidnapping, carjacking with a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, possession of heroin, possession of a firearm by an adjudicated delinquent, two counts of fleeing or attempting to elude law enforcement, grand theft of a firearm, and no valid driver’s license.
Smith’s previous juvenile charges include heroin trafficking and destroying evidence, in a case in which he was adjudicated a juvenile delinquent last year, and placed on juvenile probation. In 2018, at the age of 15, he was arrested for robbery with a firearm. In 2017, at the age of 14, he was arrested for grand theft and tampering with an electronic monitor. In 2016, at the age of 13, he was arrested for robbery with a weapon and aggravated assault with a weapon. In each of those cases, Smith was sentenced to a juvenile commitment program.
Regarding juvenile commitment programs, the DJJ website states: “In Florida, a youth may be committed by a judge (also known as adjudicated) to a residential program for the violation of a law. This is not the same as a conviction or imprisonment. The Florida juvenile justice system is designed to rehabilitate offenders through supervision, counseling and treatment. A youth’s commitment is for an indeterminate period of time, which may include periods of temporary release.”
In addition to the cases listed above, as a juvenile, Smith had felony arrests in 2020 (aggravated assault with a weapon), 2018 (inciting or encouraging a riot, at a DJJ detention facility), 2016 (resist an officer with violence) and 2015 (burglary, at the age of 12) that were non-filed.
Smith was being held without bond Wednesday at the Volusia County Branch Jail pending first appearance.
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