MELBOURNE, Fla. – A 17-year-old Cocoa girl suspected of being high on a hallucinatory street drug faces felony charges after police said she ran toward officers nude, covered in blood and yelled that she was Satan.
It is the latest arrest in Melbourne believed to be connected to the highly potent street drug flakka. The drug is causing growing concern and has gotten the attention of Brevard County's top law enforcement officers.
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Flakka is a synthetic drug, like bath salts, that authorities say gives a high similar to meth but can also cause zombie-like, aggressive behavior. The drug is believed to be moving into the Brevard area from South Florida.
"The chiefs are discussing it and it's definitely a concern," Melbourne police Cmdr. Dan Lynch told Local 6 News partner Florida Today. "Our narcotics units are doing an enforcement campaign and notified our school resource officers. But we only have 12 more days of school before the summer break begins."
The teen was charged with burglary, battery and criminal mischief after officers arrested her in Melbourne on Saturday morning, records show.
Melbourne police came across the teen – who had been reported missing earlier – near Sycamore Road after two men flagged down officers. They spotted the tattooed teen coming out from behind a home, naked, covered in blood and screaming repeatedly, "I am God," and "I am Satan."
Police say she had earlier jumped through a glass window of an occupied home before running toward a car and striking it. She also struck a person outside of home as she continued to run around the area, reports show.
Officers used a Taser to stun the teen. Hours later at Holmes Regional Medical Center, the girl told officers that she took what she thought was LSD earlier in the evening but refused to tell officers where she got it.
"Whatever she was on, it was some mind-altering narcotic. The characteristics which exhibited are just like flakka. One of the characteristics is that it raises your inner core temperature…so that causes them to take their clothes off," Lynch said.
The teen was turned over to the Juvenile Detention Center in Sharpes.