- December 16, 2025
Charges of false imprisonment and firing shots were issued Sunday.
Two incidents at Ralph Carter Park were reported this week by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office — a charge of false imprisonment and a separate incident involving a shooting. According to Palm Coast City Councilman Bill Lewis, however, the park itself is not the problem.
The false imprisonment incident occurred at about 5 p.m. Sunday, when a mother said her 11-year-old son had been picked up and carried away from the basketball court and toward the park entrance.
According to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office, 20-year-old Chad Davis said he was watching the kids play basketball, and when the victim did not get picked for a team, the other youngsters were teasing him. Davis said he picked the boy up and walked him over to the park entrance, where he told him not to play with kids who pick on him. Davis said he then walked across the street to a friend’s house.
Davis was charged with false imprisonment and battery because Davis did not have permission to take the 11-year-old from the basketball court and his intentions were unknown. He was being held Monday in the Flagler County Inmate Facility with no bond on the battery charge and a $500 bond on the false imprisonment charge.
“This man is fortunate that this situation did not escalate,” Flagler County Sheriff Donald Fleming said in the press release. “Children should be able to go to the park without fear of confrontation with any stranger.”
Lewis, who was not at the scene, believes the deputies “overreacted.”
“It appears the kid wanted to play ball, so they moved him to the side, and that became more than what it should have been,” Lewis said. “It’s just a park. Kids are going to play in it. Kids are going to be kids. … When you read a person his Miranda rights, that’s because he’s done something serious, but if it’s a case of a bunch of kids horsing around, that’s something different.”
Capt. Mark Carman, who heads the Palm Coast Substation of the Sheriff’s Office, said he trusts the deputies’ judgment.
“Taking someone against their will is a battery,” he said, adding that the State Attorney’s Office will ultimately have to decide whether to pursue charges on Davis.
The second incident occurred later Sunday night at Ralph Carter Park. Shots were fired into a crowd after two groups were arguing. Deputies located the suspect’s vehicle traveling east on Royal Palms Parkway near the intersection with Belle Terre Parkway. Seven males were detained.
Deputies found a .32-caliber firearm wrapped in a white T-shirt in the car.
Occupants of the vehicle told deputies that Johnnie Thomas Jr., of Bunnell, had fired shots at a group of people after a fight.
Deputies recovered six shell casings at the park. The recovered gun was reported stolen out of Volusia County in May 1997.
Thomas is charged with discharging a firearm from a vehicle, discharging a firearm in public, shooting or throwing a deadly missile and dealing in stolen property.
He was being held in the Flagler County Inmate facility Monday morning in lieu of $65,000 bond.
“Today, there are too many guns out there. We’ve got to get rid of these guns,” Lewis said. “I don’t know how you were when you were growing up, but when we had a problem, we’d duke it out. Now, they shoot it out.”
Lewis acknowledged that some residents may be concerned about the safety of Ralph Carter Park, despite the low number of incidents.
“It’s unfortunate, because it’s a beautiful park,” Lewis said. He said one solution is to have more events at the park. More activity could be a deterrent to people thinking they could get away with criminal activity, he suggested.
Carman added that his deputies have put extra effort into monitoring the area. He said: “With the extra patrols and security checks, we’ve seen improvement at Ralph Carter Park.”
Incidents at Ralph Carter since Jan. 1
Of the 141 instances of officer activity in Ralph Carter Park so far in 2012, five required a written report; the rest were false alarms or were resolved with no action necessary.
Two incidents were within 49 minutes of each other in the late afternoon of Jan. 17, when a verbal disturbance led to a fight. A third incident — a report of trespassing — occurred Jan. 28. A fourth involved a crash with no injuries March 11. And the fifth was the April 30 shooting, which resulted in the arrest of Johnnie Thomas Jr., of Bunnell.
(The false imprisonment incident described in this story was not included in the data from the Sheriff’s Office. It was not reported at the park but at the victim’s residence.)
— The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office contributed to this report.
