What to Know
- Management called deputies, who responded and were able to evacuate the store.
A Florida man is charged with threatening to open fire inside a Walmart, one day after a gunman killed 20 inside a Texas store.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office arrested 31-year-old Wayne Lee Padgett of Valrico late Sunday. He is charged with calling the Walmart Supercenter in Gibsonton, Florida, on Sunday afternoon and telling managers he planned to shoot up the store. About 1,000 people inside were evacuated.
Investigators said they traced the call to Padgett. No gun was found at his house near Tampa.
Padgett is charged with filing a false report of using a firearm in a threatening manner. He was being held Monday at the Hillsborough County jail on $7,500 bond. No attorney was listed.
NBC affiliate WFLA-TV said the call came in around 1 p.m. to the store in Gibsonton, located southeast of Tampa. Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office officials say an employee received the call and heard a man say he was going to come in and “shoot up” the store.
Management called deputies, who responded and were able to evacuate the store. About an hour later, officials determined the threat was not credible.
Local
“The important thing right now is that there was no actual threat here,” HCSO public information officer Amanda Granit said.
The call came just one day after a 21-year-old man opened fire near a Walmart store and a mall in El Paso, Texas – killing 20 people and injuring dozens more. The call came the same day as the Dayton, Ohio, mass shooting in which nine were killed.
“A threat like this is never funny. Especially today, it is not funny at all. We take it very seriously and this is a felony,” Granit said. “This person is going to go to jail.”
