Shopper in Walmart brandishes gun in apparent dispute over coronavirus masks
Sheriffs in Palm Beach County, Florida are searching for a man they say brandished a gun at a Walmart over a dispute about wearing a coronavirus face mask.
Florida authorities are looking for a man without a facial covering seen on security footage pointing a gun at another man's masked face, threatening to kill him inside a Walmart store over the weekend.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday asked the public for help identifying a man seen on surveillance cameras at a Walmart store in Royal Palm Beach on Saturday. The man – who does not have a mask – was seen pushing another man in a wheelchair inside the store.
The man in the wheelchair appeared to be holding a red handkerchief partially over his mouth but his nose was still exposed.
They were approached by another man, who was wearing a black mask and holding a young girl’s hand.
Amid an exchange, the maskless suspect flipped the man and child the middle finger, pulled out a handgun from his waistband, pointed the weapon toward the man and threatened his life, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported, citing the sheriff’s office.
The young girl tried to pull the man away from the suspect, and a fourth man – also wearing a mask – stepped in to intervene.
“You think you're big and bad because you pull out a gun?” the sheriff’s office tweeted, sharing images of the exchange captured by surveillance cameras.
The suspect then left the store in a white Chevy Equinox. It was not immediately clear what charges, if any, would be brought against him if arrested.
FLORIDA MAN PULLED GUN ON PUBLIX CUSTOMER DURING ARGUMENT AT DELI COUNTER: POLICE
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that the incident might have been a result of a dispute over whether or not masks should be worn during the pandemic to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Florida shattered the national record Sunday for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, adding more than 15,000 cases as its daily average death toll continued to also rise.
The numbers came at the end of a grim, record-breaking week as Florida reported 514 fatalities – an average of 73 per day. Three weeks ago, the state was only averaging 30 deaths per day.
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As of Wednesday, Florida recorded more than 290,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 4,400 deaths, according to the state health department.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
