Months before 20-year-old Antoine McDonald gained fame on the internet when he dressed in a bunny costume and beat on a man who was harrassing a woman in Orlando, McDonald appeared on camera in Pasco County.
The video was released by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday.
McDonald had just rented a UHaul truck at a used car lot on State Road 54 in Zephyrhills. Deputies were watching him as he was a person of interest in a carjacking and two armed robbery cases.
As he pulled into a nearby Walmart parking lot, deputies moved in.
“He sees y’all. So lets take him now,” one of the deputies can be heard on the radio.
Then, thinking McDonald may be armed, they order him to the ground.
“Hands in the air. Keep them in the air. Turn around. Down on the ground. Down on the ground.”
The incident in Pasco County resulted in McDonald’s arrest for fraudulent use of personal identification. According to the arrest report, he used a Delaware man’s identification to rent the UHaul truck in Pasco County.
But News Channel 8 has learned that isn’t his only run in with the law in the Tampa Bay area.
In February, authorities in Orange County arrested McDonald on a Hillsborough County warrant on charges of obtaining a vehicle with intent to defraud and false drivers license.
According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the warrant was generated by Tampa International Airport Police.
He’s due in court on that case in Tampa on Thursday morning.
Then, there is the matter in New Jersey where McDonald is a wanted man. According to a news release put out in September by the South Brunswick Police Department, he is a suspect in a string of vehicle burglaries.
Pasco deputies were aware of the warrant when they arrested him in January, but according to the arrest report, the case was non-extraditable, essentially meaning the crime didn’t warrant holding McDonald and transporting him back to race those charges.
