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Titusville, FL – Police have released the bodycam footage of the arrest of a man whom police said raped, robbed, and kidnapped women at knifepoint (video below).
Benjamin Victor Hovan, 32, was captured on a nationwide arrest warrant on Thursday at a convenience store in Titusville, just north of Cocoa Beach, according to the Miami Herald.
Police believe that on June 30, Hovan held two women at knifepoint, and raped one of them, at an apartment in Casselberry, WCTV reported.
WCTV reported that one of the women answered Hovan’s knock at their door thinking it was a pizza delivery guy.
Once the door was open, Hovan forced his way into the apartment where he held the women at knifepoint and sexually assaulted a 24-year-old woman.
Then he kidnapped them and forced them to drive to a nearby Publix grocery store and withdraw money from an ATM, WCTV reported.
Afterward, he stole one of the victim’s vehicles to make his getaway. At that point, one of the women asked a store employee for help, but Hovan was long gone by the time police arrived.
WCTV reported that Tallahassee police had confirmed that Hovan was also the suspect in a home burglary in the 2300-block of Tupelo Terrace a day or two before the Casselberry incident.
After his vicious crimes in Casselberry, Hovan headed south to Miami, where he pistol-whipped and robbed a 62-year-old woman at knifepoint before stealing her jewelry and fleeing in her Mercedes Benz on the 4th of July, according to the Miami Herald.
Hovan was captured at the convenience store in Titusville on July 5 after an alert police officer saw him behaving suspiciously and ran the license plate of his victim’s Mercedes, authorities said.
In the video of Hovan’s arrest, an officer confronted him as he attempted to leave the store.
The video showed Hovan initially complied with the officer’s commands to put his hands up, and then when the officer pointed his Taser at him, he followed the officer’s commands to get on the ground and put his hands behind his back.
The officer radioed for backup, the video showed, and an officer rushed over from a location nearby to handcuff the suspect.
However, before the officer could get her hands on Hovan, he popped up from the ground and took off in a run, the video showed.
Both officers chased Hovan, and the arresting officer deployed his Taser at the suspect’s back before he even left the sidewalk in front of the convenience store. The Taser failed to stop Hovan.
“Get down!” the officer yelled at Hovan as he pursued him through the convenience store’s parking lot.
Then, without breaking his stride, the officer quickly reloaded his Taser and once again deployed it at the suspect’s back.
The second zap sent Hovan flying face-first to the curb with the Taser prongs firmly embedded in his back, the video showed.
The second officer jumped on his back and began handcuffing the suspect immediately.
As she worked, the suspect repeatedly said “Ow, ow, ow, ow” in a soft voice.
“You know who you look like? What’s your name? What is your name?” the first officer asked the suspect.
The man responded something other than his name into the curb as the video ended.
Police were able to accurately identify Hovan by the fingerprints he left in the older woman’s apartment and in her Mercedes, the Miami Herald reported.
Hovan was booked into the Brevard County Jail on Thursday morning, and charged with home invasion, sexual battery, and kidnapping.
You can see the video of the incident below: