New Smyrna Beach Police have forwarded a misdemeanor battery complaint against Edgewater Mayor Diezel DePew to the 7th Circuit State Attorney’s Office for review.
DePew got into an altercation at 11:42 p.m. Aug. 7, the night before early voting for the Aug. 18 primary election started, at the New Smyrna Beach Regional Library. He called New Smyrna Beach Police to report that someone moved his campaign sign.
He has called the complaint a “false police report,” and said that police have not interviewed three witnesses who observed “this outrageous conduct against me.”
However, body-camera footage from a New Smyrna Beach Police officer shows DePew placing a sign directly in front of a woman, and an officer who was there questioned him as to why he “pushed it against her.”
Video shows DePew, opponent’s volunteers in sign dispute
The report redacts her name, but Donna McDavid, a disabled veteran with ALS, told The News-Journal she was at the library because someone had vandalized the Republican Party tent where she was volunteering.
With her cellphone, she recorded a chaotic scene, including a moment where DePew was carrying a 7-foot-tall campaign sign toward an empty spot. The video shows her stepping onto the space ahead of DePew, and then DePew posting the sign directly in front of her.
“He chose to put it against me,” she said. “He knows me personally. … He was pushing that sign into me.”
A New Smyrna Beach Police report states Officer Nicholas Edwards observed DePew placing the two legs of the sign in the ground next to (McDavid).
“He then rotated the sign up to plant it in the ground,” according to Edwards’ account. “During that event, I observed the sign come very close to (McDavid’s) face. I would estimate it to be one or two inches away at most. I could not confirm if the sign made actual physical contact with (McDavid).”
McDavid said she is a supporter of McCloskey, one of DePew’s challengers.
Another Republican campaign volunteer, James Rose, said he and McDavid were among volunteers who helped put up tents for the party and signs for GOP candidates, and had left by 8 or 8:30 that night. When he drove past the library an hour or two later, he noticed DePew had posted a sign in front of McCloskey’s tent.
He said he took out his camera, and DePew and his parents – who were with him – “panicked” and left.
So Rose stayed, and McDavid rejoined him, setting up the 11:42 confrontation.
McDavid said if Rose hadn’t stood next to her and supported her when DePew was planting his sign in her face, she would have been knocked to the ground.
‘You’re touching my sign! He’s touching my sign’
New Smyrna Beach Police also shared body-camera footage of the incident.
After Rose is shown standing next to McDavid, DePew cries out: “You’re not touching my sign! He’s touching my sign! There you go; it’s on body cam. He touched me.”
The officer at the scene ordered the parties involved to step back, then asked DePew: “Is there a reason you put it right in front of her and pushed it against her?”
“I did not push it against her,” DePew responded.
McDavid chimed in: “Yes, you did.”
Edwards, the officer, responded: “This is getting a little ridiculous, everybody.”
“You know what,” DePew said. “I’ll be the bigger man. I’ll remove my sign.”
“This is sad. It’s sad. …. They moved my sign and you guys won’t admit to it,” DePew said, later adding: “And for the record, he approached me. I did not touch her.”
“You touched me with the sign,” McDavid said.
“Thanks for moving it. I appreciate it. God bless all of you guys,” he said.
What is Diezel DePew saying about the report?
DePew, 22, has been mayor since 2022, when he was elected just after graduating high school.
He is seeking re-election on the Aug. 18 ballot, with two challengers, Wayne McCluskey and Steven Oleksy.
He posted on Facebook that when he arrived at the library, he was “lawfully putting up campaign signs,” and had learned that one of his signs had been moved.
“One of the individuals involved became highly confrontational to start toward me, repeatedly screaming, using profanity, and making statements that I perceived as threatening and intimidating,” DePew posted on Facebook on Aug. 9. “As I continued putting up the signs, this individual deliberately moved into my path, and initiated physical contact by thrusting her arm into the sign I was holding, after I stated where I was putting it, and that they had been taken down my original sign without permission.”
He vowed to cooperate fully with law enforcement, and is “confident that a fair review of the facts and available evidence will establish what actually occurred,” and that he won’t be “intimidated or distracted.”
− Mark Harper covers politics, government, and education for The News-Journal, with a focus on Florida, mostly in Volusia County. He can be reached at mark.harper@news-jrnl.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Police forward battery complaint against Edgewater Mayor Diezel Depew
Reporting by Mark Harper, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mark Harper, Daytona Beach News-Journal | USA TODAY Network
