Man In Boxer Shorts Crashes Into Police Cruiser, Dances: Video

ZEPHYRHILLS, FL — A Pasco County Sheriff’s Office sergeant who thought he’d stumbled across the scene of an accident Tuesday afternoon soon learned his initial assessment didn’t quite hit the mark.

According to the sheriff’s office, Sgt. M. Rosenbloom was heading northbound on Handcart Road in Zephyrhills around 1:24 p.m. May 2 when he spotted several vehicles stopped, just north of Kiefer Road. Believing he’d found a possible crash scene, Rosenbloom began to notify dispatch about the situation when one of the vehicles pulled over on the side of the road started to move.

Rosenbloom’s body-worn camera captured the action as a brown Chevrolet pickup truck backed up around the stopped vehicles. That's when authorities say things started to get weird.

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“The driver stared at Sgt. Rosenbloom” before “he rapidly accelerated in reverse, intentionally striking the front of Sgt. Rosenbloom’s vehicle,” an email from the sheriff’s office explained.

After smashing into the cruiser, the pickup’s driver jumped out, let the vehicle roll away on its own and proceeded to dance in the middle of Handcart Road, the video showed. The man was “wearing nothing but boxer shorts,” the agency’s email noted.

When Rosenbloom tried to make heads or tails out of the situation, the scantily clad man strolled away, the video showed. Rosenbloom, however, tried to calm the man down and bring him into custody. The man, the email said and video showed, didn’t comply right away.

“At one point, the male charged at Sgt. Rosenbloom, who then deployed his Taser and incapacitated” him, the email said. With the help of one of the bystanders, the man was handcuffed, the agency reported.

The man, later identified as Joseph Scott Pemberton, began to yell after he was brought into custody, saying “he had experienced ‘a revelation,’” the email noted. The man said he thought “nuclear bombs were coming,” according to the video.

Rosenbloom later had a revelation of his own, which added to the list of charges Pemberton now faces. According to the arrest report, Pemberton’s alleged escapades began earlier in the day when he “consumed an unknown liquid cleaning substance” at his home. Pemberton is then accused of piling four children into his truck, which doesn’t have working seat belts, and then taking off down the road.

“Shortly after consuming the substance, the defendant began acting erratically,” the arrest report said. At one point, Pemberton crashed the truck and then stopped in the middle of Handcart Road. The children were still in the truck, the arrest report noted, when Pemberton is accused of “making bizarre statements to other motorists who were forced to cease driving their vehicles due to the defendant blocking the roadway with his body and vehicle.”

The kids “in fear of harm,” the report noted, bailed out from the truck before Sgt. Rosenbloom drove up on the scene.

When all was said and done, authorities say the children and Sgt. Rosenbloom were not injured. The agency has not explained Pemberton’s relationship to the children. Their names and ages have not been released.

Pemberton, 41, of San Antonio was taken to a local hospital for medical clearance before being booked into the Pasco County Jail. He now faces aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer and child neglect charges.

To see the scenario unfold, watch the video below. Note: The video does contain some graphic language.

Video and screenshot courtesy of the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office