- March 10, 2025
Shawn M. Kleotzer, 29, was arrested after he tried to steal a van and then lunged at a responding Sheriff's Office deputy.
BY MATT MENCARINI | STAFF WRITER
An Ormond Beach man was arrested approximately 4 a.m. Friday after he shoved a gas station clerk, attempted to steal a car and then fought with law enforcement.
Shawn M. Kleotzer, 29, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office report, attempted to steal Hester Carter’s vehicle while she was filling her tires with air.
“He talked about the government being after him,” Carter said. “That they were going to kill him.”
Carter said Kleotzer was running at her vehicle from behind the gas station’s dumpsters, when she locked the vehicle's doors with a remote key. Her son was sitting in the vehicle's passenger seat, while Kleotzer was attempting to pull open the door.
She said her son got out through the driver’s-side door to protect her, and then Kleotzer ran over to try to get into the car from that side.
“I don’t know what he was on,” Carter said. “But I didn’t have time to find out.”
Carter, who said both she and her son were unharmed, started pulling the door, trying to wrestle it from Kleotzer.
Bonnie Green, a clerk at Hess Express, 700 S. Nova Road, called law enforcement to report Kleotzer. She told them before he tried to steal Carter’s vehicle that he was inside the gas station and walked behind the counter while she was stocking cigarettes.
She remained on the phone with dispatch and described the scene happening outside.
“She's got the car locked and he's telling her now that he's physically going to have to bring the world down and he's going to have to kill people,” Green told dispatch.
Green told the Sheriff’s Office she confronted Kleotzer when he walked behind the counter and demanded he leave the store. Kloetzer refused, according to the report, and then grabbed her by the arm, shoved her and proceeded to run out of the store.
The Sheriff’s Office said Green described Kloetzer as “drunk as a skunk.”
When the Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived on scene, they said Kloetzer lunged at one of them and attempted to “tackle him to the ground.”
“Here's (an officer) now,” Green told dispatch. “Oh, now he's fighting with the (officer).”
The Sheriff’s Office said Kloetzer continued to struggle and yell obscenities after he was placed in handcuffs.
According to the report, Kloetzer appeared “intoxicated and spontaneously uttered he was completely unaware of the incidents which previously transpired.”
Kloetzer, according to the report, is the manager of a GNC store.
Green and Carter told deputies they wished to pursue criminal charges against Kloetzer.
Kloetzer was charged with carjacking without a firearm, resisting an officer with violence and battery.
