A man called the Marion County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday after his son made threats to “light Wal-Mart on fire.”
The man told the sheriff’s deputy that his son recently flew to Tampa, then took a taxi to “Marion Florida.” The man said he was speaking with his son, who suffers from mental disorders but doesn’t take medication, and he told him that he was “going to finish eating his bag of chips, walk into Wal-Mart and set a fire inside,” a sheriff’s office report states.
The man said his son told him that he didn’t want to hurt anyone, “he just wanted to light Wal-Mart on fire.” He said his son also is addicted to methamphetamine and is a transient. And he didn’t make any statements about hurting himself or anyone else, the report says.
The man wasn’t sure which Wal-Mart his son was talking about, so the sheriff’s office either canvassed or called all the stores in its jurisdiction, as did the Ocala Police Department. All locations reported nothing suspicious, the report says.
A sheriff’s deputy also made contact with the assistant manager at the Wal-Mart located at 2600 SW 19th Avenue Rd. and made him aware of the threats. The deputy provided a photo of the possible suspect and requested that he share it with all the other local stores.
Information was later received that the man’s son could possibly be in Lake County. A sheriff’s deputy there made contact with a woman who said that he had messaged her recently after not having any contact for a few years. The woman said the man didn’t make any threatening statements about anybody or Wal-Mart. And she said she didn’t know where he lived or where he was calling her from.
Deputies were advised to be on the lookout for the possible suspect for Baker Act criteria, the report says.