Mixon no stranger to violent behavior

Joseph Mixon, the driver of the truck that triggered Saturday morning's stunning fire, checked himself out of a Panama City hospital Sunday afternoon and returned to his home in Apalachicola.

Apalachicola Police Chief Bobby Varnes said he was told by one of Mixon's friends that the man had sustained a dislocated jaw, severe cut to the head and a fractured neck as a result of the collision.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Florida Highway Patrol, lead agency in the investigation, had not arrested Mixon for any crimes, but were actively pursuing their inquiry.

"Everything's still pending," said FHP Trooper B.S. Roddenberry. "We're still in the middle of a crash investigation. We'll be making contact with the driver and get his side of the story."

Roddenberry said blood was drawn at both Weems Memorial Hospital and Bay Medical Center but that it could take three weeks to a month to obtain the test results. "Under a situation like that any time there is serious bodily injury we're able to subpoena medical blood tests," said the trooper.

Mixon's record indicates that he has been involved in several explosive incidents, one of which was adjudicated Nov. 12 by Circuit Judge James Hankinson.

In July 1992, he was arrested for aggravated assault, but that charge was eventually dropped.

On Aug. 31, 2008, Apalachicola Sgt. Chet Turner arrested him for public affray and two counts of resisting arrest without violence. On Nov. 12 he was adjudicated guilty of affray and ordered to pay $445 in costs and sentenced to time served, a day in jail.

Zack Craig, a bartender at the Oasis, said Mixon has been banned from the downtown bar for about two months.

He said before Mixon was barred, it seemed that "every time he left the bar he was going outside to fight." Craig said he witnessed Mixon pull "some kind of a gun looking thing, it wasn't a water gun" during an altercation on Market Street. He said that in order to disarm him, the police tasered Mixon because "it was the only way to calm him down."

On Saturday evening, Nov. 8, Mixon was sitting in a car near the corner of Market Street and Avenue D when a wedding party emerged from a nearby restaurant to send the bride and groom off on their honeymoon.

Witnesses said Mixon accosted a female member of the wedding party and when confronted by the father of the bride, struck him in the face and fled. On the same evening, Mixon was involved in a fight in a nearby parking lot.