A man who allegedly tried to rape a woman by lifting her dress and tearing off her underwear in a Walmart store reportedly found himself mugged by an angry mob of shoppers. The incident took place inside the Miami-Dade store on Northwest 79th Street at around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 20.
On Sunday, while the unidentified victim was shopping at the Walmart store, the suspect, identified as Bredan Harvey, 28, of Miami Gardens, approached her from behind and proceeded to pull up the woman’s dress, grab her private parts, and rip off her underwear after he shoved her to the floor, New York Post reported.
Witnesses in the store immediately rushed to help the woman, pulled Harvey off the victim, and held him until Miami-Dade Police arrived.
Harvey has been arrested and charged with sexual battery and was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center where he is currently being held with no bail.
"It wasn't somewhere isolated. He didn't care it was in the wide open," said Alvaro Zabaleta, Miami-Dade Police Detective. "Because he was so brazen, investigators feel perhaps he may have done this before, and there may be more victims."
Officers are asking anyone who may have been victims of similar attacks to call MDPD's Sex Crimes Investigation Unit at 305-715-3300 and inform the incident, NBC 6 South Florida reported.
“The safety of our associates and customers is among our top priorities. We’re very disturbed to see something like this happening to a customer in our store and are grateful that the assailant was captured and detained until police arrived,” Walmart representative Robert Arrieta said.
In a similar but unrelated incident, an 11-year-old girl was allegedly assaulted by an elderly man at a Walmart in North Carolina while her mother wasn’t paying attention to her on July 16, 2021, Latin Times reported.
According to the girl’s mother, Holly Hage, her husband, and their two daughters, ages seven and 11, were shopping at the store when the frightening incident happened. While she was browsing the pots section, she noticed 63-year-old Raymond Leonard Mancini lurking nearby. The suspect made her uncomfortable, prompting her to instruct her youngest daughter to stay beside her.
However, Hage's older daughter was farther down the aisle looking at candles when Mancini approached the victim, which the parents did not notice.
"He approached her, pulled the front of her pants trying to pull them off," Hage said. "And he said, 'I'm sorry I have to.' No, you don't have to, no. It's disgusting."
As the child screamed in shock, the suspect fled the scene. Following this, Mancini was arrested and charged with felony indecent liberties with a child and felony second-degree kidnapping.
During his court appearance, the charge was upgraded to first-degree kidnapping. He was also ordered to stay away from all Walmart properties and undergo a mental evaluation.
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