Eccentric Squatter Seizes Roxwood Sheriff's Office, Turns Station into Smelly Fortress and Crashes into Marina Beach
Roxwood County — In a bizarre tale that feels ripped from a crime drama, an elderly local eccentric turned the usually quiet Roxwood County Sheriff’s Office into his own personal fortress before leading deputies on a wild RV chase that ended with a crash on Marina Beach.
According to sources in the department, the man—a grizzled wanderer who has been seen panhandling around Roxwood for years—wandered into the Sheriff’s Office late last week and decided to stay. Over the course of several days he dragged in couches, lawn chairs and piles of junk, smashed up portions of the lobby and even tore up sections of the sidewalk out front to build makeshift fencing. He stoked bonfires of trash in the parking lot for warmth and cooked his meals on an old grill, filling the air with an acrid haze. Residents who walked past the station complained of the constant smoke and the unmistakable smell of burning garbage—mixed with the skunky odor of weed.
“We thought it was some kind of performance art at first,” joked one Roxwood deputy who asked not to be named. “But by the second day he had a refrigerator and a mattress in there and was hollering at passersby like he owned the place. We tried to talk him out of it but he told us we could pay rent if we wanted to come in. It was like something out of a sitcom.”
After repeated attempts to coax him outside failed, deputies finally entered the lobby to escort the man out. Inside, they were met by piles of broken furniture, empty beer bottles and a couple of potted marijuana plants basking under a desk lamp. When the old man saw the deputies eyeing his herbal crop, he made a run for it, scrambling into a rusty RV parked out back.
What followed was one of the most surreal police chases in recent Roxwood memory. The RV lurched through town belching black smoke, lawn chairs and loose trash tumbling out of its back door as deputies pursued with lights and sirens. Witnesses reported the old man leaning out the driver’s window, shaking his cane at officers and shouting unintelligible insults. The chase wound through downtown and onto the coastal highway, ending only when the RV clipped a Marina Beach Patrol unit and came to rest half in the sand, half in the surf.
A spokesperson for the Roxwood County Sheriff’s Office said the suspect was taken into custody without serious injuries. Deputies are still assessing the damage to the station, which will require significant repairs and a deep cleaning. The Marina Beach unit involved in the crash sustained minor damage. No bystanders were hurt.
While the incident has elicited plenty of jokes on social media—Weazel News’ own Jo Steele quipped on air that “the station needed renovating anyway”—it also highlights the challenges local law enforcement faces when dealing with individuals experiencing homelessness and mental health issues. Deputies say they hope the man will get the help he needs once the court system has its say.
Meanwhile, Roxwood residents can breathe a sigh of relief that their Sheriff’s Office is once again open for business… and that the lingering smell of burning trash is finally beginning to fade.
