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Background: The area of I-95 North and Northlake Boulevard in Palm Beach County, Florida (Google Maps) Inset: Jonathon Pego (Palm Beach County Sheriff”s Office)
A Michigan man is accused of threatening the lives of police officers who woke him up from his sleeping place on the side of a major interstate to check on him.
Jonathon Pego, 35, was asleep next to southbound Interstate 95 near Northlake Boulevard in Florida on Monday at about 12:35 a.m. when Palm Beach Gardens police officers arrived, according to an arrest warrant. The man was on the western shoulder of the freeway.
He was “unconscious, breathing and disheveled in appearance,” the court document states. Pego â later identified by a Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan card â “was obviously highly impaired and unaware he was on the side of a freeway,” police noted.
Pego is said to have identified himself by his name and birthday, but when a responding officer asked for more information, the Michigan man “became increasingly hostile.”
“Fâ you,” Pego allegedly told the officer when he offered his help. This prompted the officer to take out his taser and aim it at Pego, who is said to have become “increasingly hostile,” ignored orders not to stand up, and “told this officer in a threatening manner not to touch him.”
Just five minutes after arriving, officers restrained Pego and placed him under arrest.
Officers found an identification card in Pego’s pocket as they drove back to the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department. It was at this time that the man allegedly hurled threat after threat.
“No one is going to miss you where you’re going,” the arrest warrant cites Pego as saying. He also allegedly “made mentions about having friends who would do harm to this officer and this officer’s family” and “made threats against this officer’s life.”
Pego was charged with corruption by threat against a public servant or their family, resisting an officer with violence, and resisting an officer without violence. He was jailed and given a $1,000 bond.