Beaufort County Walmarts in the news
Shoplifter tries to stab employee
A St. Helena Island man was accused of lunging at a Walmart employee and putting a knife against his back in the men’s bathroom at the Beaufort Walmart.
The man left the store before police could arrive, but was arrested days later after he reportedly returned to the store to shoplift $38 worth of merchandise.
Sonny Jamie Richardson, 25, was charged with attempted murder and shoplifting. His charges are still pending, according to court records.
Drawn guns, taser break up parking lot brawl
Three people were arrested outside the Beaufort Walmart after a fight in the parking lot prompted officers to draw weapons and use a Taser.
Two officers drew guns in response to the fight and an officer deployed a Taser against a 34-year-old woman who officer say was uncooperative.
She was charged with criminal domestic violence and possession of a schedule IV drug after she was found with pills suspected to be Xanax.
Bomb squad called to Beaufort Walmart
A suspicious package found inside a car in the parking lot of the Beaufort Walmart was blown up in a "controlled demolition" by members of the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office bomb squad.
The package was detonated by the bomb squad about three hours after being found in a car used by five men arrested for shoplifting.
Officers observed four foot-long cylinders wrapped in duct tape and electrical tape with protruding wires inside the suspects’ Chevrolet Impala and contacted the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office bomb squad.
A bomb robot removed items from the trunk of the car and a bomb squad member searched the vehicle while wearing a Kevlar suit.
The bomb squad determined the objects posed no danger.
Two shootings in two months
A Beaufort woman pleaded guilty to attempted murder after she tried to rob her father at knifepoint in the Beaufort Walmart parking lot and later shot at him while she chased him in her car.
Cassandra Maura Ramos, 23, of Beaufort, met her father in the parking lot of the store hoping to get money from him, the Port Royal Police Department told the Beaufort Gazette. She pulled a knife on him and when he attempted to drive away reportedly fired three shots from a .357 revolver at her father near Grober Hill Road.
Two men were convicted in connection with an attempted murder after one shot a man in the arm in the Beaufort Walmart parking lot.
Dion Ramell Hagood and Pierre Lamont Bryant, both of Burton, were reportedly arguing with a 24-year-old Beaufort man outside the store just before midnight when Hagood fired three or four shots, striking the victim once in the arm, police said.
Crack deal gone bad
Two St. Helena Island men who told 911 dispatchers they'd been robbed at the Beaufort Walmart and were pursuing the culprit were arrested after allegedly chasing a man who sold them fake crack cocaine and firing several shots into his SUV, police reported in 2012.
The SUV’s 24-year-old female driver was shot and critically injured, while her three children -- ages 3, 5 and 8 -- and a 24-year-old man who were inside the SUV were unharmed, police reported.
The two men arranged to meet the man in the Walmart parking lot sometime before 2:30 a.m. to buy crack cocaine, police reported.
Soon after the transaction, the men realized the man had sold them fake crack, and set out to find him, eventually catching up with him and shooting at the vehicle on S.C. 170 in Bluffton, police reported at the time.
The men were charged with attempted murder, but charges were later dismissed, according to the Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
Alligator captured
A 7-foot-long alligator was caught in the parking lot of the Walmart on Hilton Head Island after surprising some shoppers and employees.
A Walmart customer service representative noticed the reptile's head near a bike rack at the front entrance of the store one morning in December 2009 and called an animal control company.
Customers gathered around the adolescent male reptile, which hissed and retreated across the parking lot to a grassy median.
Three sheriff's deputies later kept people away from the gator while it was captured and taken off Walmart property.
This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 12:33 PM with the headline "Beaufort County Walmarts in the news."