A 20-year veteran of the Volusia Sheriff's Office now faces two felony counts after surveillance video captured him allegedly assaulting a 71-year-old woman and her 77-year-old husband at a New Smyrna Beach bar on a Monday afternoon. Sergeant Jason Stickels, 44, was arrested by New Smyrna Beach police after a bystander physically subdued him, and his own sheriff wasted no time calling the incident a career-ender.
Stickels was off duty when he walked into Merk's Bar & Grill and, in the Volusia Sheriff's Office's own words, "created unwanted contact with a couple seated near the bar." What followed, captured on the bar's surveillance system, was a sequence that moved from harassment to violence in seconds.
The 71-year-old woman told police that Stickels tried to kiss her. Video described in the charging affidavit shows Stickels leaning close to the woman, who backed away and stood up from her chair. Her 77-year-old husband rose to confront Stickels. A waitress stepped between the two men, and then, as Fox News Digital reported, Stickels charged and grabbed the husband by the throat.
That is when a bystander seated at a nearby table intervened. The unnamed patron came up behind Stickels, locked him in a chokehold, and took him to the ground.
New Smyrna Beach Police Department officers arrived at approximately 4:20 p.m. The charging document records that Stickels told the responding officer, "you know who I am," before showing his sheriff's office badge. He was arrested on two counts of felony battery on a person 65 years of age or older.
No injuries were reported. Court records show Stickels posted a surety bond and walked out of jail the same day.
The Volusia Sheriff's Office moved quickly on the administrative side. Stickels was placed on immediate administrative leave and forced to surrender his law enforcement equipment. The office said final discipline, which could include termination, is still pending.
Stickels has been employed by the Volusia Sheriff's Office since 2004. Two decades of service, and now two felony charges stemming from what his own sheriff described as a drunken afternoon outburst.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who has led the agency since 2016, did not mince words. In a social media post, Chitwood wrote:
"How to throw away your law enforcement career in 2 minutes. Off duty, stumbling drunk, harassing people who are just trying to enjoy their afternoon."
Chitwood added a direct apology to the victims:
"I apologize for this soon-to-be former Volusia Sheriff's Office sergeant's idiotic behavior today."
The phrase "soon-to-be former" leaves little ambiguity about where Chitwood expects the administrative process to end. And his willingness to release the surveillance video and condemn the sergeant publicly signals an agency that understands it cannot afford to look the other way.
That kind of swift accountability from a sheriff is worth noting. Some departments have moved to fire officers over far less, while others drag their feet when the misconduct is far worse. The public deserves to see both the offense and the consequence, and in this case, they got both on the same day.
The Stickels case fits a broader, uncomfortable pattern of law enforcement officers facing serious criminal charges for off-duty conduct. A Cayuga County sheriff's deputy was recently arrested on child rape charges after a state police investigation, a reminder that a badge does not guarantee character, and that agencies must police their own ranks as aggressively as they police the public.
The facts here are straightforward. A sergeant with two decades on the job allegedly accosted a woman old enough to be his mother, then grabbed her elderly husband by the throat when the man tried to protect his wife. A waitress tried to intervene. She was not enough. It took a civilian bystander, someone with no badge, no duty weapon, and no obligation, to end the confrontation.
The "you know who I am" line from the charging document is the kind of detail that sticks. It suggests a man who believed his position entitled him to deference, even in the middle of an arrest for allegedly assaulting senior citizens. Whether that attitude developed over 20 years of carrying a badge or surfaced only in a haze of alcohol, the charging affidavit makes clear that it did not impress the responding officer.
Several questions remain open. The charging affidavit does not indicate whether Stickels was given a breathalyzer or sobriety test. Sheriff Chitwood described him as "stumbling drunk," but no blood alcohol level has been publicly reported.
The victims' names have not been released. Nor has the identity of the bystander who subdued Stickels. The court or jurisdiction handling the criminal case has not been specified in available reporting, and no case or docket number has been made public.
It is also unclear whether formal termination proceedings have begun or whether the agency is waiting for the criminal case to advance. Chitwood's public language, "soon-to-be former", suggests the outcome is all but decided. But administrative process and political rhetoric do not always arrive at the same destination on the same schedule.
The broader question of how a 20-year sergeant ends up allegedly attacking elderly patrons at a bar in the middle of a Monday afternoon is one the Volusia Sheriff's Office will have to answer internally. When a police chief in Bethel stepped down after a 70-count indictment, the community was left asking how warning signs were missed. Whether Stickels had any prior disciplinary history is not addressed in the available record.
What stands out most in this case is not the misconduct itself, bad actors exist in every profession. It is the contrast between the man with the badge and the man without one. Stickels allegedly used his size and aggression against a couple in their seventies. The unnamed bystander used his own initiative to protect them.
No training. No authority. No "you know who I am." Just a person who saw something wrong and acted.
Assaults on and by those in uniform erode the public trust that law enforcement depends on every day. Chitwood's rapid response, the arrest, the leave, the public apology, the video release, is the right instinct. But the damage is already done. Every officer in Volusia County who puts on the uniform tomorrow morning now carries the weight of a colleague who, by his sheriff's own account, threw away a career in two minutes.
The couple just wanted to enjoy their afternoon. The bystander just wanted to do the right thing. The sergeant, apparently, just wanted everyone to know who he was. Now they do.
