Police: Suspect was pepper-sprayed, but his head injury was his own doing

A Hardeeville man was charged with public disorderly conduct after he broke down a woman’s front door, was pepper-sprayed, and repeatedly banged his head against the cage in a deputy’s car Thursday morning, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office report.

The man was spending time at a friend’s Yacht Cove home on Brittany Place Drive when she told him to leave, the report said. When he went outside to smoke a cigarette, she locked the door behind him. He yelled and began kicking the door.

The woman sprayed him with pepper spray when he broke through the door, and he ran away, the report said.

After finding the man behind the home, deputies arrested him for public disorderly conduct, the report said.

On the way to the Beaufort County Detention Center, the man “became aggressive and extremely violent,” slamming his head into the cage in the back of the patrol car, the report said.

Because of the head-banging, the man got a cut above his left eye and was treated at the Beaufort Memorial Hospital, where he continued to yell and curse at deputies and hospital staff, the report said.

Once back en route to the jail, the man began hitting his head against the cage again but did not sustain any more injuries, the report said.

He was booked into the detention center at 3:24 a.m. Thursday and released Friday morning before noon, according to the jail log.