PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — A 24-year-old Clearwater man is no stranger to the law. In fact, while making his first appearance before Judge Pat Siracusa, the judge acknowledged knowing him.
“You’ve been in front of me how many times in the past five years, three or four,” Judge Siracusa asked the man. “Haven’t I always treated you fairly?”
Calvin Brockington, 24, is accused of shooting Pinellas Park Police Officer Jacob Derr on Tuesday night at the Circle K on Ulmerton Road in Pinellas Park. He’s now in jail on numerous charges including carjacking, battery and two counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.
8 on Your Side did some digging into his past. Court records indicate he and another man tried carjacking a woman in St. Petersburg in 2016. A year later, he pleaded guilty to attempted carjacking and carrying a concealed firearm.
A judge sentenced Brockington to three years in Florida State Prison. Around that same time, police arrested him for robbing a cab driver, but prosecutors never pursued that case.
After his release in 2020, court records indicate he had not learned his lesson. Police arrested him twice on battery charges and more recently on grand theft auto and kidnapping charges. According to the arrest report, he stole a woman’s car with her child in the back seat. He ended up abandoning the car, according to the report, and leaving the child in the vehicle. The child was not hurt.
A woman who attended Wednesday’s court proceeding testified that she is his mother and if he bonds out of jail, he could stay with her or another family member. When asked if she wanted to make a statement on her son’s behalf, she asked our crew to respect her privacy.
Judge Siracusa ordered that Brockington be held without bond, for now. He will hold a bond hearing to consider reducing the bond at a later date.
