Hurricane 'hero' Lieutenant Dan arrested in Florida for fighting

A sailor who went viral after he decided to ride out on his boat has been arrested after cops said he was refusing to move his vessel.

Florida man Joseph Malinowski, who rose to after posting as Lieutenant Dan on TikTok was arrested by officers on Friday.

Officers made the arrest after the 54-year-old refused to move his boat over an alleged health hazard. At a meeting on Thursday cops told Malinowski he did not have a proper record of waste disposal on his boat, or an accessible marine sanitation device.

The one-legged seafarer was ordered to move his boat from the Bayshore Linear Park on Thursday as cops said it was a public health hazard - but it was still there on Friday morning.

When police returned on Friday Malinowski was arrested and taken to jail - on his arrest notice his occupation was listed as ‘Tik Tok Star’.

READ MORE:

Malinowski rose to fame posting on Tiktok as ‘Lieutenant Dan’ a name he reportedly earned after he lost his leg in a car crash when he was 16. In the Stephen Spielberg movie Forrest Gump Lieutenant Dan is a Vietnam veteran who lost both legs below the knee and who rides out a storm in his fishing boat.

Malinowski revealed on the platform that he would not be heeding evacuation warnings ahead of Hurricane Milton and instead he intended to ride out the storm on his 20-foot boat.

“The safest place to be is on a boat in a flood. We learned that with Noah,” he told his followers. “Everyone that stayed on land drowned. Noah and the animals lived. I'm not worried. My life, this is nothing compared to what I've been through. This doesn't scare me.

“This is not even a minor inconvenience because all that's going to happen is everyone is going to get wet, but I'm going to be fine because I'm in a boat that floats.” Malinowski shared his experience riding out the 120mph storm with his more than 242,900 followers.

After the hurricane a GoFundMe was set up for him raising $44,000 for a new boat and internet streamer Adin Ross also agreed to buy Malinowski a new boat.

As he has grown more famous online a string of run-ins with the law have surfaced. Malowski has had more than 70 contacts with police in Florida and North Carolina since 2012, according to .

He has convictions for assault and petty crimes and has been accused of drug possession, assault, resisting police, burglary, battery, among others. Most recently he served six months in prison for punching a police officer in the nose. He was released in 2022.

He is due to appear in court later this year in a dispute over the ownership of his boat.