Rising cost of crack cocaine allegedly leads to man's arrest

Upset at the rising cost of crack cocaine, a 46-year-old man accused of smashing up part of a Fort Pierce business and “challenging people to fight” on Tuesday was arrested.

A manager of Dixon's Food Mart on Avenue D told police a man later identified as Gus Young Jr. came in the store about 9:20 p.m. Tuesday and smashed a counter partition and DVD case. As police were on the scene, the store manager pointed to a man on a bicycle in the parking lot and exclaimed, “There, he's back! That's him!”

Young smelled strongly of alcohol and was “challenging people to fight,” the report states.



“When Young calmed down, he said he was upset that the price of a rock (crack cocaine) had gone up to twenty dollars from ten dollars,” the report states. "Young claimed he swung his fist at a drug dealer in the store, but the drug dealer ducked and Young struck the partition and DVD case instead of the drug dealer.”

Young was arrested on charges including criminal mischief and disorderly intoxication.

At the jail, Young continued yelling about “how unfair the price of crack had become” and told detention deputies, "Stanky (expletives)! I brought me a ten and they're twenty tonight!”