A man was arrested last week after police say he brutally assaulted another man near the city’s parking garage and Visitors Information Center in downtown St. Augustine.
According to an arrest report, St. Augustine officers were dispatched around 12:32 p.m on Monday Oct. 20. to 11 S. Castillo Drive after a caller reported a man had been beaten and was bleeding heavily while the suspect fled on foot.
When officers arrived, they found the victim in the men’s restroom inside the VIC. He was bleeding from the back of his head and left ear, with cuts, bruises, and scratches covering his face and arms.
He told officers he had been sitting on a bench between the parking garage and the VIC when a young male, whom he did not know, suddenly attacked him without provocation.
The suspect repeatedly punched and kicked him as he fell to the ground. A Good Samaritan eventually intervened, pulling the assailant away, and the suspect then ran off toward Cordova Street.
The victim told police that he recognized the man as the same individual who had randomly pushed him to the ground about an hour earlier near Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum.
He described the suspect as a skinny male in his twenties with brown hair, wearing dark jeans and a black shirt with white lettering.
Witnesses at the scene — a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses who had booths set up in the parking area — confirmed his account.
Surveillance footage from city cameras later showed the suspect fleeing south through the VIC area, papers state.
Shortly after the attack, an officer located a man matching the description in the nearby Plaza de la Constitución.
The man, identified as homeless 24-year-old Hunter Henschke, had turned his shirt inside out in what officers believe was an attempt to disguise himself. The victim later positively identified Henschke as his assailant.
Police say Henschke has two prior battery convictions — one in St. Johns County earlier this year and another in California in 2022.
He was arrested at the scene, declined to speak with investigators after being read his rights, and was transported to the St. Johns County Jail.
