They finally nailed him.
An elderly Florida man dubbed the “Nail Bandit” was arrested Thursday morning after almost two years of purposefully damaging fire rescue vehicles by placing sharp objects beneath the tires, authorities said.
John Allan Starnes, 72, was arrested while “[committing] the act in real-time” during a traffic stop following the months-long “Operation Nail Bandit” in Okeechobee County. He is accused of committing “repeated acts of sabotage” against the county’s fire department, according to the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Department.
“For the last 18, 19 months prior to April, County Fire has been experiencing nails, tacks, sharp objects that have been being thrown about their private vehicles and in front of the emergency response vehicles at all the fire stations,” Okeechobee County Sheriff Noel Stephen said at a press conference Thursday.
Since April alone, the county recorded at least six other attacks that Starnes confessed to, according to the OCSD.
Stephen claimed that Starnes “has a beef” with the county’s fire department and “thought it best that he go ahead and handle the situation himself.”
Fire officials were familiar with Starnes as they had extinguished a fire on his property three years ago, WPTV reported.
“We would have to check our vehicles multiple times on multiple occasions. We’d have people walk every two hours and kind of check,” Earl Wooten, fire chief of Okeechobee County, explained to the outlet.
“We had some short little roofing nails that were branded, then we had some long roofing nails, then we started having like screws, then recently there was some like wire disk that were sharpened that were being thrown out.”
First responders across the country have had to take extra precautions as their interactions with the very people they protect have grown increasingly hostile.
In late June, three firefighters in Idaho were ambushed by a crazed shooter who intentionally set the fire to lure them out there.
Two of the three firefighters responding to the call were killed in the shooting while they desperately called for backup under heavy gunfire.
The gunman, 20-year-old Wess Roley, shot himself before authorities could capture him.
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