VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – New details were released Tuesday about the arrest of a carjacking suspect out of Daytona Beach — including how he was attacked by pit bulls after fleeing from the crime scene, according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies said Anthony Galloway, 42, ditched a car he had stolen during a carjacking at a BP gas station on Monday morning and started banging on the door of a unit at the Whispering Winds Apartments complex while screaming “Momma.”
A 57-year-old woman living in the unit partially opened her door after hearing Galloway scream, and the man managed to force his way through the door, knocking her backward and slamming the door shut behind him, deputies said.
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According to a news release, when the woman realized Galloway was a stranger, she commanded her two pit bulls to attack him.
“He had his hands up, hollering, “Momma, momma! Help me!’ I’m like, ‘I am not your momma. What are you? What!?’” said Marie Gilbert, who lives in the apartment. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t know you. Get him, girls!’”
Gilbert explained that one of the dogs latched onto Galloway’s arm and the other on his hip. Once law enforcement arrived, they asked her to call her dogs away.
“(The dogs) grabbed him here, and the officers came in, and once they came in, they asked me to call the dogs off,” she said. “And once I called the dogs off, he got up from here, and he ran here and jumped out of my kitchen window.”
The gun that investigators believe was used in the carjacking was also recovered from a different apartment complex along Brentwood Drive, where a 7-year-old boy discovered it on Monday afternoon, investigators said.
The sheriff’s office said the boy’s mother reported her son had accidentally fired the handgun, shooting an unoccupied apartment.
According to deputies, Galloway was seen running into a warehouse along Mason Avenue, where SWAT units ultimately arrested him after around an hour of trying to persuade him to surrender.
Galloway faces charges of armed carjacking, armed robbery, grand theft, possession of a firearm, resisting an officer without violence, burglary with battery, criminal mischief and battery. He is held without bond.
Court documents show Galloway also faces charges related to a convenience store robbery in Daytona Beach on Monday, those being robbery with a firearm, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony and possession of a weapon by a felon. The documents allege Galloway was one of two men who demanded money from a cashier at gunpoint hours before the carjacking.
He also had active warrants out of Lake County on theft charges and Orange County for violation of probation on prior charges of fleeing from law enforcement, deputies said.
According to the sheriff’s office, Galloway’s criminal history includes 67 prior felony charges with 12 convictions and 25 previous misdemeanor charges with 22 convictions. Those charges include 13 counts of grand theft, three counts of aggravated assault with intent to kill, aggravated battery on law enforcement, burglary with battery, armed robbery, aggravated fleeing, child cruelty and narcotics offenses.
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