A disturbance at the Walmart on SR-54 and Little Road in New Port Richey led to a full store evacuation.
Pasco Sheriff’s deputies responded to reports of a subject who appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance, who was in the crawl space above the ceiling inside the store.
The suspect in this case, 47 year-old William L. Harrell Jr., was ultimately taken into custody for a Baker Act, as well as several pending charges relating to the incident.
One of the charges includes Aggravated Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer.
Due to that charge, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office decided to mute the body worn camera footage is to not identify the deputy victim in that case.
During the course of the incident, deputies say the suspect armed himself with a broken fluorescent light bulb and attempted to stab at the deputy with it. Due to this, several uses of less than lethal force were employed during the incident, including a bean bag gun, taser and pepper spray.
Walmart was temporarily evacuated while deputies were working with the subject to come out of the crawl space.
