FORT MYERS — A man accused of stomping on a 13-year-old boy’s head and punching another for throwing Play-Doh in the streets has now been identified and arrested, Florida authorities said.
Jorge Garza, 19, was taken into custody on two counts of child abuse May 22, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office announced.
The search for Garza had been ongoing for nearly a month, when deputies received a report of an unknown man beating up two 13-year-old boys near a Fort Myers apartment complex, McClatchy News reported in April.
One teen told WBBH he and his friends were tossing the Play-Doh in the road April 26 when one of his friends threw it and it made contact with a car driving by.
The blue Honda made a U-turn and started coming back toward the boys, so they took off running, deputies wrote in an incident report.
The person in the car, now identified as Garza, caught up to one teen and punched him in the face, and the boy went down, deputies said.
He recounted Garza continued punching him on the ground, then stood up and stomped on his face, according to the report.
“He was asking me like, why did you throw rocks at my car and this and that,” the teen told WBBH. “I was trying to explain to him but I was getting punched in the face while he was asking me all these questions.”
Another 13-year-old told investigators he ran back when he saw his friend was getting attacked. He said the man accused them of throwing rocks and punched him in the face as well before walking away, according to deputies.
The second teen said he ran to a clubhouse nearby to get help, the report says.
Part of the attack was caught on video and shared by authorities asking for help identifying the man.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno thanked the community for coming forward with tips. “Physically battering a child out of pure anger is unacceptable behavior and it will NEVER be tolerated,” Marceno said in a news release. “I am proud of my (detectives’) dedicated efforts that led to an arrest and justice for the victims.
By OLIVIA LLOYD/McClatchy News
Olivia Lloyd is a National Real-Time Reporter for McClatchy covering the Southeast. She is based in South Florida and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Previously, she has worked for Hearst DevHub and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
