Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A 30-year-old man was taken into custody Thursday night after deputies said he threatened an Instacart delivery driver while armed with a machete.
According to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called to Holly Heights around 9:43 p.m. on July 24 for a report of an armed disturbance. The delivery driver told deputies he had arrived at the location when a white man in a blue shirt came out of an apartment and began shouting at him, demanding that he move his headlights out of the man’s eyes. The driver said the man then approached his vehicle and threatened to strike him in the head with the machete.
As deputies spoke with people inside the apartment connected to the delivery, the driver alerted one deputy that the man who had threatened him had just passed nearby on an e-scooter, now wearing a gray shirt. Deputies stopped the rider, identified him as Jason Ira Hosey Jr., and detained him.
Residents inside the apartment told deputies they had placed the Instacart order and heard an argument outside, though they initially believed it involved a neighbor. One man in the apartment said Hosey had been wearing a blue shirt, returned inside briefly, changed into a gray shirt, and then left again on the e-scooter.
The delivery driver later identified Hosey as the person who had threatened him with the machete, deputies reported.
After a resident gave deputies permission to enter the apartment, a deputy located what was described in the report as a “very large knife” among Hosey’s belongings.
Hosey, listed as homeless in the arrest report, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Deputies noted that he has no local criminal history, though records indicate prior arrests in Texas.
Judge David Kreider ordered him held without bail pending a hearing on a motion from the State Attorney’s Office to hold him without bail until trial; if the judge denies the motion, bail will be set at that hearing.
Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
