A 79-year-old Florida man is now facing serious armed assault charges after he allegedly pulled a handgun on a Walmart worker he claimed had a “bad attitude,” as reported by The Independent. This whole situation is completely wild, showing an absolutely shocking escalation over what sounds like a simple store policy dispute.
Pascual Santana, who was born in May 1946, was arrested last Friday and charged with armed assault. Court records show that he allegedly terrorized an attendant in the jewelry section right from the seat of his mobility scooter. Santana has entered a plea of not guilty to the charge and is demanding a trial by jury, which is certainly his right, but the details of the incident are pretty chilling.
The confrontation took place at a Walmart located in Hialeah, which is part of the broader Miami metro area, on November 16, 2023, around 10:50 AM. Santana rolled up to the jewelry counter and asked to see several pieces of merchandise. That’s when things went sideways fast.
It just goes to show you that a trip to the jewelry counter can sometimes turn into a terrifying ordeal
The worker explained to Santana that store policy only permitted customers to view one piece of jewelry at a time. I mean, this is a fairly common rule to prevent theft, but Santana apparently wasn’t having it. A sheriff’s deputy wrote that the defendant “became upset because he felt that the victim was not providing good service to him.”
When the attendant stood firm on the policy, Santana allegedly ramped up the aggression. He reportedly began speaking aggressively and even started calling her derogatory names. The worker tried repeatedly to explain why the rule was in place, but Santana just refused to accept it. According to the arrest record, he told her she had a “bad attitude” and insisted she needed to “fix it.”
This is where the situation jumped from a grumpy customer complaint to a terrifying crime. A Miami-Dade County sheriff reported that Santana, after repeatedly verbally abusing the woman, opened his shirt to reveal a handgun tucked into his waistband. Then, he delivered the chilling quote: “Are you scared now?”
The victim was, understandably, terrified. She immediately fled the area to find help from store security. Several months passed between the incident and the arrest, but deputies eventually caught up with Santana.
When confronted with surveillance footage that allegedly showed him threatening the worker, Santana offered a truly bizarre defense. He insisted that the person seen in the footage was actually “some other armed 79-year-old.” That’s a pretty specific demographic to blame, and I can’t imagine that defense is going to hold up well in court.
In the meantime, the legal process is moving forward. Court records show that Santana applied for and received “indigent status,” meaning he has been assigned a public defender to represent him. He’s currently in jail and being held on a $5,000 bond. No specific court dates have been listed yet. Notably, this isn’t the first time someone has pulled a gun inside a Walmart store, though.
Published: Feb 10, 2026 03:30 pm