- March 9, 2025
Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies were involved in a four-hour standoff Thursday evening with a wanted fugitive when they responded to a 911 call in Southern Flagler County.
Deputies were dispatched to the home at 243 County Road 330 E. around 9:41 p.m. after the Sheriff’s Communications Division received a 911 call where the caller hung up without talking with dispatchers. Dispatchers notified deputies that William Sitton, 35, a resident of the home, had an outstanding warrant for felony violation of probation for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
When deputies arrived, they announced themselves and observed Sitton, who had been sitting at a kitchen table, run to the back of the residence. As deputies entered the home, they found live ammunition lying on the floor, along with pieces of a gun. Deputies called for Sitton to come out of his room. He began taunting deputies to “come inside and get me." Deputies who were positioned outside the bedroom window saw the man with a knife inside a bedroom. He appeared to be cutting himself. As deputies talked with him from outside the home, Sitton moved to a bedroom where he warned deputies he had a firearm and would use it if they entered.
While the deputies on the scene continued to talk with Sitton, other deputies escorted his brother safely from the residence. The brother told deputies he had called 911 by accident.
Additional deputies and a K-9 unit then surrounded the house and observed Sitton inside the bedroom. He was lying on the floor with a heavy blanket covering his entire body. Deputies then ordered him to exit the house, but he refused. Deputies said he made several references to Satan while gesturing with his hand as if to shoot himself. The Sheriff’s Office has been called to the Sitton home 84 times since 2008 for various complaints and deputies were aware that Sitton had a long history of suicide attempts, weapons complaints and involvement with narcotics.
A decision was made to enter the home as deputies continued their attempts to have him surrender. Sitton responded that he would not surrender nor take off the blanket. At that point, he stood up and moved to an adjoining bathroom. As he did, deputies entered through a bedroom and fired four bean bag rounds, striking Sitton in his back and lower thigh area. Deputies then were able to shoot pepper spray into the man’s face and handcuff him inside the bedroom.
“This was a dangerous situation which was skillfully defused by the deputies who were on scene. The house already was known to us as being problematic,” said Flagler County Sheriff James L. Manfre. “We are fortunate that these deputies were able to make this arrest using a non-lethal method.”
Sitton was being held in the Flagler County Detention Facility on no bond on the warrant and $1,000 bond on a charge of resisting arrest without violence.
