Sponsored:
Jacksonville, FL – A Walmart robber’s getaway plan came unraveled on Friday, after two separate drivers pulled handguns on him as he attempted to carjack them at knifepoint.
Clad in a bright orange shirt, Christopher Raymond Hill, 36, went into a Walmart liquor store and asked the cashier, LaToya King, if he could have change for a $20 bill, WJAX reported.
King told him he would need to make a purchase, so Hill used the money to buy a pack of cigarettes.
The seemingly routine transaction took a turn when Hill came flying at her over the counter.
“When I did that, he leaped over the counter and he grabbed my hand and I was like, ‘Sir, what are you doing?'” King told WJAX.
He grabbed the open cash register drawer, but King was able to close it before Hill could get his hands on the money inside, WTLV reported.
Hill then yanked the entire cash register off of the counter and bolted from the building towards his silver Ford SUV parked in the lot.
The getaway vehicle wouldn’t start, so Hill grabbed the register and ran over to Scott Reardean, who was parked near a Supercuts at the opposite end of the lot, according to WJAX.
On the back window of his pickup, Rearden proudly displayed a decal that read, “U.S. Army Retired Transportation Corps.” The decal was flanked by emblems reading, “Desert Storm Vet,” and “Iraq War Veteran.”
“He wasn’t going to get my truck,” the retired army veteran told WTLV. “I don’t care if you’re Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, you’re not getting my truck.”
After Reardean refused to give him a ride, Hill set the register in the bed of Reardean’s pickup and proceeded to slash him with a knife.
“I turned the ignition off, grabbed my keys, opened the door and boom, there he was,” Reardean told WJAX. “I was…trying to get the knife off me, and he’s like, trying to pull me and he yanked my shirt and ripped it all up.”
Rearden sustained cuts to his hands and leg before he managed to grab his handgun from his pickup.
“I reached in between my glove box and my console, between my seats, reached down and got my weapon and brandished it for him,” Reardean told WJXT. “He was like, ‘Don’t shoot me.’ I was like, ‘then get out of here.’”
“Once he saw that… I mean, you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight,” Reardean told WTLV.
According to WJAX, Hill promptly abandoned his effort and scurried off towards a nearby Starbucks drive-thru line.
He then approached the passenger side of a woman’s vehicle, so she rolled down her window to see what he needed.
Hill jumped into the vehicle and demanded that the woman drive, she told police.
When the woman was unable to push Hill out of her car, she exited the vehicle and ran to grab her Ruger handgun from her trunk.
Hill confronted her, but took off running again when she pointed her gun at him.
He then ducked off into the Supercuts store and barricaded himself inside a restroom until police arrived, WJXT reported.
Police found a knife in Hill’s pocket as he was being taken into custody. The stolen cash register was also recovered and returned to Walmart.
“These guys can talk about banning assault rifles and banning guns, but when it comes and happens to them, they’re going to wish they had one,” Reardon told WJXT, as he wore an AR-15 shirt. “I’m glad I had [my gun] on me.”
Hill has been charged with strong-arm robbery, attempted carjacking, and aggravated battery.
In 2017, he was found inside a woman’s vehicle with a knife and was ultimately convicted of possession of a controlled substance, resisting an officer without violence, and burglary.