Neighborhood locked down while deputies seek man
WRIGHT - Okaloosa County deputies swarmed into a quiet Wright neighborhood early Monday afternoon in search of a wanted man believed to be armed.
They emerged from a stable off Hawkins Road 90 minutes later with aggravated battery suspect Robert Michael Dubois in handcuffs.
John Merchant, a fugitive warrants investigator for the county, got credit for finding Dubois’ hiding place.
“He was up along the back of a horse trailer,” Merchant said. “I could just see his back and the bottom of his feet.”
Dubois, 30, didn’t resist, Merchant said.
“When we dimed him out and he knew we knew where he was, he decided to climb down,” he said.
Monday’s hunt for Dubois, wanted out of Santa Rosa County on suspicion of an Aug. 28 assault on the pregnant mother of his child, began about noon, after he fled from a Florida Highway Patrol officer trying to pull him over.
Dubois ran when the trooper attempted to stop him at the intersection of Marwalt Drive and Racetrack Road, said Florida Highway Patrol Lt. James Shaw.
When the suspect sped off, the officer broke off pursuit and requested fellow law enforcement agents to be on the lookout for him, Shaw said.
Choctawhatchee High School students who were outside at the time of the short pursuit were requested to come inside, said school Principal Cindy Massarelli.
Dubois, whose last known address was the Laurel Oaks Court home of his parents, abandoned his car near the Winn-Dixie on Beal Parkway and disappeared into a wooded area behind the store.
Deputies thought Dubois could have been armed because a trooper reported knowing him to have carried a weapon in the past, said Okaloosa Sheriff ’s Lt. J.D. Peacock.
No weapon was found at the scene of the arrest, said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Catherine Rodriguez.
Investigators used dogs to scour the wooded area behind Winn-Dixie for any sign of Dubois. They also set up camp outside of his parents’ home and shut off access to Hawkins Road.
Barri Brown said he and his wife, Lindsey, left their Cotton Tree Court home separately after lunching together, and each was subjected to a vehicle search.
“We heard the sirens but didn’t think much about it,” Brown said. “Then we came out and all these cop cars were out here.”
Adrienne Taylor, whose home sits next door to the stable where Dubois was found, said she was ordered inside.
“They asked us if we’d seen anyone running and we said no,” Taylor said. “Then they said, ‘Y’all need to get in the house.’ ”
From inside, Taylor said she watched as officers ran by shouting “10-31” — lawmen lingo for “in pursuit.” She left her home, she said, after figuring the coast was clear.
“They said ‘No, go back in. We didn’t get him,’ ” she said.
As it turned out, Dubois was wanted not only by Santa Rosa County on the felony charge; he also had a misdemeanor warrant for his arrest in Okaloosa County.
The aggravated battery charge stems from an incident in which he forced the pregnant mother of his child into his pickup truck, then “took off with her,” according to Sgt. Scott Haines, spokesman for the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office.
He has faced charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon before. On March 31, 2006, he was arrested in Okaloosa County after threatening a man with a knife.
Dubois pleaded no contest to a lesser charge and served no jail time for the 2006 assault.