- October 30, 2024
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A Palm Coast man drunkenly drove down State Road A1A firing off an AR-15 in the early morning hours of Jan. 17, leading multiple alarmed locals to call 911, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.
The man, 35-year-old Ryan Centofanti, has been charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence and with discharging a firearm from a vehicle, a felony.
The FCSO's dispatch center first began receiving reports of gunshots in the area at 3:24 a.m., according to an FCSO report.
One caller reported seeing a vehicle drive by and noting "flashes" coming from its interior.
A deputy caught up to the vehicle, an SUV, on southbound A1A, and recognized the flashes as muzzle flash from a firearm, according to the report.
Two deputies conducted a felony traffic stop on the SUV as it turned onto North 16th Street.
They ordered the driver out of the car. He said he had trouble hearing them, but they were able to get him out of the car and secure him.
When they opened the car doors, the SUV's interior stank of burn gunpowder. There were spent .223 casings scattered throughout the car, and an AR-15-style rifle in the rear seat. The rifle was "very hot," according to the deputy's report.
When a deputy asked Centofanti why there had been flashes coming from his car, Centofanti said he didn't know but believed that his iPhone lit up from incoming text messages.
"I told him I too owned an iPhone, and my phone did not light up A1A when it rang," a deputy wrote in the report.
Centofanti had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, the deputy wrote. Asked about the shell casings, Centofanti said they were there because he was in the firearms sales business.
The deputy also asked him if he'd always had hearing problems, and he said he did, and that those were the reason his speech was slurred. But, when asked, he said his hearing issues had not been documented at AdventHealth, where he worked as a paramedic.
Centofanti failed sobriety exercises and, tested at the county jail, had breath-test results of 0.196% and 0.178% blood alcohol concentration. The legal limit is 0.08%.
He acknowledged that he'd been drinking, but said he'd only had one beer. A deputy found a receipt on him from Finn's Beachside Pub for a Basil Hayden's on the rocks. Deputies arrested him.
