- April 25, 2024
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An incident that ended with a man striking a woman with a baseball bat Feb. 20 started with rude gestures between two drivers.
Jessica Coleman, a 22-year-old Palm Coast resident, was driving east on Landing Boulevard in her Ford Ranger that afternoon when a Chevy Malibu ran a stop sign and cut her off, she later told Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputies.
She flipped off the Malibu's driver, later identified as 32-year-old Palm Coast resident Marcus Green.
Green stopped at a yield sign and yelled at Coleman, she said. She yelled back. Then he got out of the car and "walked up to her driver's side window with a bat in his hand," yelled at her and punched her in the face, according to a Sheriff's Office charging affidavit's account of Coleman's statement.
Green then went back to his car, but Coleman, who "did not want him to get away," struck the Malibu from behind with the Ranger, according to the affidavit. There were two children, as well as Green's girlfriend, in the Malibu.
Green got out of the Malibu, came back to Coleman, and "started hitting her in the face with the end of the bat," then yanked her out of the Ranger and to the ground.
Green's girlfriend, Xenia Toro, stepped out of the Malibu, and Green yelled, "Call 911, she hit me."
Toro did call, telling a 911 dispatcher that Coleman had crashed into her boyfriend's car and then "put her hands on him," and saying to the dispatcher, "I'm trying so hard not to put my hand on this girl."
Another 911 caller described things much differently, telling a dispatcher, "There's this black guy beating on this woman."
When Sheriff's Office deputies arrived, Green was "very upset," and told a deputy, "She tried to hit me," the deputy wrote in a charging affidavit. Green said Coleman had gotten out of her car, approached his car, and struck him twice in the face through the window, according to the deputy's account in the affidavit.
The deputy saw no marks on Green's face. Meanwhile, Coleman was bleeding from the left side of her face, her shirt was torn, and she had "multiple scrape-type lacerations on her arm and side."
Green told the deputy he'd only gotten out of the truck to defend himself and had then punched Coleman in the face and "slam dunked her to the ground." After that, he said, she got into the Ranger and tried to ram him as he was standing between the two vehicles, striking the Malibu after he leapt out of the way.
The deputy asked Green if he'd ever had a bat in his hand during the incident, and he said no, but he admitted that there was a bat in the car. The deputy took it was evidence.
Toro told the story differently, saying Coleman and Green had both gotten out of their vehicles after Green stopped the Malibu, and that Coleman had struck Green while they were both outside. She said Green then stuck Coleman back, and Coleman had then tried to ram him with the Ranger.
The deputy asked Coleman what she was trying to do with the Ranger. She said she'd just been hit in the face with a baseball bat by Green and didn't want him to get away, but said she wasn't trying to hit Green.
There was evidence against Green's and Toro's account of the incident.
There was "no ... logical reason that Coleman would know (Green) had a bat in his possession" if Green had never had it in his hand, as he'd said, the deputy wrote in the affidavit. And the deputy had found the baseball bat on the front driver's side floor of the car, where the driver would place his feet — not a position it would be in during driving.
Then there were Coleman's injuries, which were "consistent with being thrown on the ground and being struck in the face," and the fact that her shoes were on the ground near her Ranger, indicating that the incident happened there, and not at the Malibu, as Green had said.
Green said he had back pain, and was taken to Florida Hospital Flagler. Once he was medically cleared, the deputy arrested Green, who said, "What about her trying to hit me with the car?" and kept saying Coleman had struck him.
A deputy told Green he could sign charges against Coleman for trying to hit him with the car after he got out of jail, but also told him there was no physical evidence that Coleman had struck him.
"I informed him that there was physical evidence that he did more than defend himself by the extent of Coleman's injuries," the deputy wrote in the report.
As the deputy arrested Green, Green replied, "Yeah, I kicked her (profanity)."
Green was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
