Motorist Plows Into Walmart, Drives Around Store A While: Watch

SAN ANGELO, TX — A Walmart Supercenter reopened Friday in San Angelo, Texas, a day after police said a motorist plowed his pickup through the market section, knocking over a few end-cap displays and making it to the cereal aisle near the back of the store before turning around and driving out. Caleb Wilson, 19, of Eldorado, is accused of deliberately trying to run down an 18-year-old woman he’d been arguing with just moments earlier outside the store at 5501 Sherwood Way, local police said in a statement.

Wilson and the woman had been in the store trying to buy a pallet of water and Wilson was “exhibiting erratic behavior,” witnesses told police. They left the store and began arguing outside, according to a bystander who overheard them and convinced the woman to come back into the store for her personal safety.

When the two left the store to see if Wilson was gone, he sped toward them in the red 2001 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck and they “narrowly avoided injury by jumping out of the truck’s path,” the statement said.

Wilson’s alleged drive through the store lasted several minutes. Police said he drove into multiple displays and fixtures, causing about $500,000 property damage, according to preliminary estimates. Police arrived as Wilson was driving out of the store through the northeast entrance.

Wilson didn’t stop when he saw police lights and sirens, but instead sped through the parking lot, hitting an unoccupied 2007 Toyota Camry and continuing on to the Murphy USA gas station at 5525 Sherwood Way, the release said. There, he was taken into custody following a brief struggle as officers were handcuffing him, according to police.

As they were detaining him at the gas station, officers saw a large amount of fuel leaking from the truck’s heavily damaged undercarriage and activated the fuel pumps’ emergency shutoff.

Late-night shoppers weren’t sure what to make of the sound of shattering glass as the truck rammed into the building.

“We heard what we thought was big machinery,” Mindy Ralston told the San Angelo Standard-Times. “We thought maybe it was a forklift gone wrong because we heard some chaos and some shattering glass.”

“Bloodcurdling screams” took Ralston and her partner’s minds somewhere else: Was there a gunman in the store, she wondered.

“I just heard screaming,” Ralston told the newspaper. “I heard ‘Get out of the way,’ ‘Stop it,’ ‘What the hell are you doing?’ ”

She and her partner looked for a place to hide, finding a space about two aisles away from the cereal aisle where the truck turned around.

“I, of course, thought that it was a shooter for sure,” Ralston said. “There was no doubt in my mind that there was going to be a mass murder at Walmart in San Angelo, Texas.”

Investigators obtained arrest warrants for Wilson for first-degree felony criminal mischief and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

He remains under medical care at Shannon Medical Center, where he was transported after he exhibited “excited delirium” during his arrest, the statement said. He became combative with the hospital staff, the release said.

Photos and video via San Angelo Police Department