Two Bradenton brothers and a relative charged with attempted murder in knife attack, cops say

The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office executed three arrest warrants on Christmas Eve and have charged three Bradenton men with attempted second-degree murder.

Brandon Schwartz, 27, was arrested around 6:30 p.m. in the 1500 block of Whitfield Avenue, while Jacob Bennett, 21, and Jared Bennett, 19, were arrested in the 1100 block of Hagle Park Road an hour earlier.

Deputies say they responded to the 1300 block of 57th Avenue East in reference to a stabbing and found the victim being treated by EMS for “numerous stab wounds to the neck, back and shoulder area,” according to the arrest warrant.

Deputies secured the scene and located several witnesses who reported that the victim arrived with a couple of friends to pick up scaffolding to finish a construction job.

Shortly after arriving, the three suspects pulled up in a vehicle and approached the victim, according to the report.

Deputies say the victim used to date the mother of Jared and Jacob Bennett and that Schwartz is related to the Bennett brothers.

An argument began immediately, at which time Jared Bennett was seen picking up a concrete block and throwing it at the victim and deputies say Jacob Bennett then picked up a heavy garden rake and “began to wield it as a weapon.”

Deputies say Jacob Bennett struck the victim with the rake causing it to break and then he was confronted by Jared Bennett. As the victim went to defend that attack, he was stabbed several times from behind, according to the report. Witnesses pointed out Schwartz as the individual doing the stabbing.

The three men then left the scene, deputies say.

Witnesses told deputies that at first, it looked like the three suspects just wanted to beat up the victim, but it became apparent that they wanted to kill him, according to the report.

The victim was taken to Blake Medical Center and treated for four large stab wounds that “were several inches long and appeared to be very deep,” according to the report.

The victim claimed the three men had confronted him earlier that day because they had heard he had been saying bad things about their mother, a claim the victim denies.

However, according to the victim, he and Jared Bennett had fought one another earlier that day over the claims, and that led to Schwartz and the Bennett brothers confronting him again where the stabbing occurred.

All three men were booked into the Manatee County jail and are being held without bond pending a future court date.

According to court records, Schwartz was released from prison in September after serving almost seven years of an eight-year sentence he received in 2012 for multiple burglary convictions.

Jacob Bennett also has a history of car burglaries with an arrest in 2016 for four counts, as well as dealing in stolen property and defrauding a pawn broker. Those charges were consolidated and delayed, but he was convicted almost a year later in 2017 and sentenced to four years probation.

Jared Bennett was classified a juvenile delinquent in 2017 after convictions on four counts of vehicle burglaries and one count of grand theft, according to court records. He was sentenced to probation.

In 2018, Jared Bennett was found to have a handgun and ammunition in his bedroom after deputies executed a search warrant for the possible sale of methamphetamine on the house where he lived.

After already being classified as a juvenile delinquent who can’t be in possession of a firearm, he was sentenced to 10 months in the county jail, according to court records.

This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 1:06 PM.