Shortly before 5 p.m. on May 23, Gary Armstrong left his office at Darling Construction and, while driving along Azalea Lane, noticed a man standing in the road and trying to flag him down.
“I thought he needed help,” Armstrong said, “so I stopped and rolled down my window.”
Armstrong said the man approached his car and began screaming at him – punctuating his verbal assault with obscenities – then reached through the open window and slapped him in the face, breaking his sunglasses.
Armstrong immediately called 911.
“He was scary, ranting and raving the way he was,” Armstrong said. “He must’ve dropped the F-bomb 50 times. I didn’t know if he was on drugs or mentally unstable or what.”
The man, still visibly and vocally agitated, was at the scene when the police arrived. But as Armstrong explained to the officer what had happened, the man walked away, apparently headed for his nearby apartment.
According to the Vero Beach Police Department’s report, the officer stopped the man, who “would not answer any questions about the incident.”
Instead, when asked for his version of the incident, the man responded: “You know what happened. You know what’s going on. You know who they are. Whatever you say is what happened.”
That’s when Michael Colloca, a local part-time tennis instructor who has worked at some of the Vero Beach area’s premier clubs, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery. He was released from the Indian River County Jail on $500 bond.
A month later, after realizing that Armstrong is 70, prosecutors increased the charge to battery on a person age 65 and over – a third-degree felony punishable by a sentence of five years imprisonment and a $5,000 fine. Colloca, 51, was re-arrested June 23 and released from jail the next day, after posting a $2,500 bond.
Colloca’s next court date is set for July 27, and Armstrong plans to be there to tell the rest of the story.
“Not everything is in the police report,” Armstrong said.
The arrest affidavit states that Colloca was being transported to the jail when he finally offered his reason for confronting the driver. The Long Island, N.Y., native said he believed Armstrong was a private investigator hired to follow him, and that a private investigator has been following him around for two and a half years.
He didn’t say why.
Armstrong, who lives on a sailboat docked at the city marina, said he’s not a private investigator and has “no idea” why Colloca would think he was.
“Until that day, I had never seen – or spoken to – the guy before,” Armstrong said, adding that he is a general contractor who has worked in construction for years.
The arrest affidavit also states that Colloca hurled harsh obscenities at others in the vicinity while the officer was questioning Armstrong. It does not, however, include what Armstrong said led to his incident.
Armstrong said another man, who did not want to be identified, caught Colloca trying to break into his truck in the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Bank at Beachland Boulevard and Mockingbird Drive.
When the man came out of the building, Armstrong said, Colloca “started running away and turned down Azalea.”
That’s when Armstrong, who had just pulled out of the parking lot at his office, noticed Colloca flagging him down.
“After he attacked me, there was another SUV that drove by with an older couple in it, and he started screaming at them, too,” Armstrong said. “He started yelling, ‘That’s the other guy. That’s the attorney.’
“Maybe he’s schizophrenic,” he added.
“I don’t know, but there was definitely something wrong with the guy,” he added.
Colloca has worked – only when needed and on a contract basis – on the tennis courts at several local clubs, including Quail Valley and Grand Harbor.
He also has worked as a waiter at local restaurants.
He has a history with police and the courts.
He was arrested on a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia in Martin County in 2004.
In that case, he entered a plea of no contest and was placed on probation with the court opting to withhold adjudication of guilt.
Another arrest came in Dade County in 2005, when Colloca was charged with purchasing cocaine, possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest without violence.
The two cocaine-related charges and the drug paraphernalia count were eventually dropped, and he entered a plea to the resisting arrest charge, paid a fine and, again, adjudication of guilt was withheld.
“It’s kind of ironic, because I moved back here to get away from all the crime in Baltimore,” Armstrong said of his previous home, where he lived for 13 years.
“I lived here 25 years ago and always enjoyed coming back to visit. Now I’m back for good.
“I love the whole Vero Beach scene, and I’m not going to let this guy ruin that,” he added.
“My only problem is that I was a Good Samaritan.”
