Hate crime. I am tired of them. They should go back where they came from. Cosby said.



Standing before the judge with his head held high, a white man accused of hate crimes for intentionally driving his car into a black woman seemed unconcerned Tuesday afternoon.

"I have no legal obligation under Act (Corp.)," Thomas Darryl Cosby told County Judge Peter McGlashan at his first appearance in court. The statement came in response to a public defender's request that the 56-year-old Port Orange resident undergo a mental health evaluation.

However, McGlashan granted the request for the evaluation. In addition he ordered Cosby held on $60,000 bail on charges of aggravated battery and simple battery.

The counts stem from an incident at 7:50 p.m. Monday in the 700 block of South Atlantic Avenue. Police said, "for no apparent reason," Cosby drove over a curb and hit Nekedia Cato while she was riding her bike on the sidewalk.

The 25-year-old Daytona Beach resident suffered a badly broken left leg and unknown internal injuries. She was listed in good condition at Halifax Health Medical Center on Tuesday afternoon.

After hitting Cato, police said Cosby's sedan careened into a tree and then hit the front porch of a nearby home, rolled over several times and came to a stop. Cosby, who suffered only minor injuries, climbed from the vehicle and started screaming at bystanders, urging them to "help me kill these (racial slur for black people)," several witnesses told officers.

At one point, he struck another person before being detained by witnesses until police arrived.

When asked what happened to his car, Cosby told investigating officers, "I turned my car to take him out," even though the victim was not a man.
Crosby also complained to police about blacks making fun of him and having sex with his wife and girlfriend.

"I am tired of it," the arrest report states, quoting Cosby. "They should go back to where they came from."

Cosby's racially charged statements prompted the enhanced charges, Daytona Beach police spokesman Jimmie Flynt said.

"We felt that met the criteria for a hate crime," he said.

According to court records, Cosby has a history of mental illness. In 2000, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity on a 1998 complaint of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. Before that determination, he was involuntarily committed to a state mental hospital for three months.