FORT MYERS, Fla. – A woman calling for emergency help told police her son had “jumped” her husband and hit him in the face. The violence in their Florida home on the morning Nov. 24 was the last straw for those parents, whose son had done much worse.
Officers arrived and reported the 77-year-old victim “immediately stated his son, Derrick Hamilton, had struck [him] in the face twice this morning in two separate incidents.
“The first occurred at approximately 8:30 a.m.,” the arrest report said, “when [the father] was watching his morning television. Derrick had come inside through the rear of the home and approached his father, not expressing anything verbally, before smacking [his father] with an open hand on the right side of [his father]’s face.
“The second occurred at approximately 10:15 a.m., about five minutes prior to [the mother] calling 911. [The father] stated Derrick again came in from outside and approached his father before balling up his fist and striking [his father] in the right side of [his father’s] face with a closed fist. Derrick then grabbed his father’s feet as if he was going to pull [his father] from his chair, but stopped when [his mother] entered the living room.”
The arrest report continued, “[The father] explained there had been no argument or any other provocation from either involved property, prior to Derrick’s actions. Derrick has been diagnosed with various mental disorders, which one side effect is random bouts of violence.
“[The father] stated he would like to press charges against Derrick, as he feels Derrick is a potential threat to his family and other individuals around the neighborhood.”
Hamilton’s 75-year-old mother was home during the violence, but “did not visually observe Derrick hitting his father,” but told an officer “she was able to hear the pair going back and forth verbally after the alleged physical incident, and entered the living room area to see Derrick attempting to pull his father off the chair.”
Police noted, “[The father] reiterated he wished to press charges for the public’s safety, but also expressing a desire for his son to get the mental health help he needs through the courts. [The father] also stated officers had recently responded to their home due to Derrick hitting him with the shoe on Nov. 14, as well as over the summer which resulted in Derrick being Baker Acted.
“[The mother] stated to her knowledge, Derrick was up to date with taking his prescribed medication but was recently acting aggressively toward her and [his father]. Derrick continually slammed doors in the home and would tower over both of them in an aggressive manner, culminating in the events of this morning.”
Derrick Hamilton left home before the cops arrived, but they found him walking around the neighborhood, and he claimed “his father had struck him in the throat as well.”
Hamilton faced a variety of drug charges over the years.
His most serious crime involved a man shot to death outside a bar on Nov. 15, 2004. The bullet was a 32 caliber, but, “This information was never released outside of law enforcement,” the arrest report from three years later said.
The case “went cold after several months with no good suspects,” it continued, until October 2007 when a prosecutor got “a letter from an inmate in Miami who wrote that he had information on the murder.”
He said “a person known to him” in prison in North Florida “had told them that he knew” the killer was Hamilton, so authorities traveled there and were told, “An inmate known to them as Dollar Bill, who was identified by the inmates as Derrick Hamilton … bragged about shooting and killing [the victim] with a 32 caliber gun.”
Also, the report said, “Hamilton stated that it was a robbery and the white cracker deserved it because he owed Hamilton money for drugs.”
Then, “Due to the consistency of the inmates’ statements as to what Hamilton had told them … and specific information known only to law enforcement, Hamilton was arrested,” and he eventually pleaded no contest to manslaughter and got a four-year sentence.
Years later, while in jail for grand theft of a motor vehicle and criminal mischief of $1,000 or more in 2014, a correctional officer said she saw Hamilton “repeatedly strike” another inmate “in the head with closed fists.”
That report said surveillance video showed “Hamilton struck inmate [name] with such force, it knocked him (inmate [name]) to the ground. Inmate Hamilton immediately jumped on top of inmate [name] and struck him two more times,” until another inmate restrained Hamilton.
The victim later claimed “he blacked out … and he has trouble hearing out of his right ear,” plus, the two didn’t know each other “and the attack was unprovoked.”
Hamilton got 27.7 months in prison for that, with credit for 1,108 days served.
This time, the 44-year-old was simply charged with battery on a person 65 or older, which is a felony. He has been in jail ever since.
Police said someone at the state Department of Children and Families “will not accept the report, but would document the incident.”
The arrest report did not mention any other calls to the home, besides earlier in the month and over the summer.
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