A 52-year-old, unemployed Gainesville man faced the consequences of giving car rides in exchange for cocaine early Saturday morning, when he was kidnapped and beaten by two men he had picked up.
After Michael Fair accepted crack rocks from Wallace Lee Jones, 30, and drove him around the city, the Gainesville Police Department charged Jones with refusing to get out of Fair's moving car and trying to rob him, said GPD spokesman Lt. Keith Kameg.
At first, Fair agreed to drive Jones and another man, who has been identified as Marcus Chatman, 21, a suspect who has not yet been detained.
But after Fair wanted the men to get out of his vehicle, they refused, telling Fair they would "mess him up" if he tried to leave the truck and saying he still owed them more rides because he "done smoked too much dope," according to a police report.
Chatman ordered Fair to give him $5, and when he didn't, Chatman hit him with a glass bottle, leaving a two-inch wound in his head that dripped blood all over the truck, the report stated.
Both Jones and Chatman then got out of the vehicle and were gone by the time police arrived.
Fair identified the men from a photo lineup, and Jones was arrested Monday. Kameg said the case is one in which the victim put himself in a position to be taken advantage of by committing an illegal act.
"If you don't smoke crack with people you don't know, none of this happens," he said.
