Panhandler arrested for threatening driver with knife
Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – William Christopher Hart, 32, of West Palm Beach, was arrested yesterday morning after allegedly threatening a driver with a knife when she expressed concern about his dog while he was panhandling.
At about 9:10 a.m., a Gainesville Police Department officer responded to the intersection of SW 34th Street and Williston Road, where the victim said her car was stopped in traffic at the intersection when she saw Hart panhandling in the median with a dog. She said she was concerned for the dog’s safety and told Hart she was going to call animal control. Hart and the victim reportedly argued, and Hart reportedly told the victim to roll up her windows and keep driving.
The victim reported that while she was still stopped, she saw Hart “stalking her car” on the driver’s side with a curved knife in his hand and she was so afraid he would stab her that she was ready to flee across the intersection whether or not there was oncoming traffic. She reportedly screamed, “Are you going to kill me?” and Hart allegedly responded, “I’m going to slash your tires for being such a b**ch.” The victim said she drove away and called the police.
Post Miranda, Hart reportedly said the victim screamed at him that she was going to call animal control to take his dog away; he said another driver called him over to give him money and the victim suddenly drove away, screaming that he was going to stab her. Hart reportedly denied pulling a knife on the victim. The officer asked how the victim would be able to describe his knife if he hadn’t pulled it out, and Hart reportedly said it was probably a good guess because he is homeless.
A search incident to arrest reportedly produced a knife with a curved cut on the top of the blade; the knife was in a holster hanging around Hart’s neck and tucked inside his shirt. The arresting officer noted that it would be “impossible” for “any reasonable person to conclude that [Hart] was in possession of a knife.”
Hart has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He has one felony conviction (non-violent) and eight misdemeanor convictions (non-violent); he has served one state prison sentence and was released in 2014. He reportedly refused to provide information about how long he has been in Alachua County. Judge Meshon Rawls set bail at $15,000.
Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Arrest ALL of the panhandlers if they are interfering with traffic and ‘camping’ on the medians.
This is another of those people that POE and Ward welcome to GNV. To stop the panhandling problem is simple. Make a law prohibiting panhandling, period. Oh yeah, then enforce it. Half the bums will drift to a different “welcoming city”.
We already have the local law on the books in Gainesville. The woke folk in charge choose to ignore it, just as so many laws are ignored in this country.
I was under the impression that it was illegal to panhandle in Gainesville. Wasn’t there a law passed a few years ago?
Here’s the article in a nutshell:
Karen antagonizes someone over something that wasn’t any of her business, and gets melodramatic about the response. If she had cared at all about the dog, she would have just called the authorities instead of harassing the guy. She wanted to run her mouth and share her opinion, and she got her comeuppance.
Morons, both.
Next.
She was virtue signaling. She lives in a bubble where she’s never had a negative consequence of rudely expressing her opinion. Image being so emboldened that you think it’s a good idea to get into a verbal altercation with a drugged-up bum.
Also, the bum needs to go back to West Palm.
Or she’s a drama queen who revels in conflict. In either case, she’s one brain short of having one brain.
Seriously.
I like dogs better than people and panhandling vagrants should not be in the median panhandling with a dog.
If I see a bum in the median panhandling, law enforcement should be seeing them too and telling them asap to move-on or
Go to jail.
This guy is a POS and so are those that that say sh!t about this lady. Glad this nutjob with a knife got arrested. Send his ass back to Palm beach and the dog should be with someone who can
Provide a good home for him..🐕
You are just as silly as her. How about mind the business that pays you. Apparently the dog is in some good condition if it didn’t look like he wasn’t taking care of it. Now you got a dog going to the vet to probably be euthanize because of a Karen.
The dirty bum prolly gave the dog fleas. You prolly got fleas too!
Shaquonda, you’re missing the point. Should the man have been in the median to panhandle, with or without a dog? No. Should Karen have yelled at him? No. Both of them were wrong.
But Karen really went out of her way to demonstrate that she was primarily a drama queen when she instigated a confrontation and then fantasized from the safety of her automobile that the man she antagonized might kill her with a knife through her car door and that she might be better off driving headlong into traffic. That’s extra stupid.
I drove past the man and his dog daily for a couple of weeks, and the man was attentive to the dog, and the dog was well behaved. Neither caused any trouble except by virtue of their existence in the median, and their behavior was safer than any of the dozens of drivers I saw during the same period more focused on their phones (and on other people’s business) than on the road.
There are ways to report dangerous behavior, but the only story here is that a self-righteous Karen made a scene and the person she antagonized responded poorly.
Mike: invite him to live with you…
Yep, you talk a lot of trash.
The name is Michael, not Mike. And, no. I’ll just leave him alone because it’s not my business, just like I said Karen should have done. Don’t be dense.
What about the dog? Who’s taking care of him? Hopefully Humane Society.
Which brings me to another point maybe all the folks who are Pro-Bum, should go to the Dis-Grace Center and adopt a Bum. Hopefully they have received all their shots and have had their ear clipped.
They use dogs to gain sympathy!!
So disgusting
Orrrr maybe, just maybe, they had a normal life once WITH this pet BEFORE becoming homeless.
If he left his dog behind, people would still call him a POS bum for leaving the dog…..
You people sound so ignorant!!
Lindsay: orrrrr, he should move in with you to help him get back on his feet if you are so smart and not ignorant…yep. All talk.
What about the dog? Who’s taking care of him? Hopefully Humane Society. Which brings me to another point maybe all the folks who are Pro-Bum. Hopefully they received all their shots and have had their ear clipped.
Adopt a Bum
How lovely. Palm Beach County knows how to get rid of panhandlers, but everybody knows Alachua county LOVES attracting human chaos and misery here. So our Law Skool grads don’t have to migrate elsewhere for work 💩👿👹🤡👺ACLUSPLCDNC
Congrats to the New Secretary of Begging , donald picked another stand out citizen for his cabinet . This pick will offset all the tariffs / Prices being raised in a few months . Make America Great Again ..
You got TDS bad.
Move to Gaza if you don’t like Trump.
I’ll say it again, only a matter of time before Danny Rolling 2.0 rolls into town on a greyhound bus.
Let’s get to the important stuff, what happened to the dog?
False alarm – it was just his beard.
You are definitely doing modern life incorrectly if you roll up to crazy people confronting them about their probably equally crazy dog. She wanted to be cut so bad to fuel her victim narrative lol
Side note, it seems Alachua Chronicle allows a lot of these hateful and off topic and divisive comments because it’s the only way they can get some traffic
Panhandling/Begging/ Street Urchin
Think of me as you pass by. As you are “now” so once was “I”. As I am now you’ll soon be. Prepare to “Donate” and follow me.
Lean to the Left
Lean to the Right
Stan Up Sit Down fite fite fite!!!
Some time ago, (Last December) I had a very heated face to face conversation with my older brother.
So, I left his house to drive home to my house…, on a phone call, wearing an earpiece.
As I approached the Newberry Rd, I 75 off ramp, there was a homeless guy walking back up the ramp begging for money.
Mind you, I was already salty about the thing with my brother, whilst on the phone call wth my mom. (And things are becoming more heated as the call log ticker does its thing)
So the the dude walks up to my window whilst I wait for the light, and says “You got any change, maybe an extra cigarette”? As he seen my smokes on my dash through the windows. I’m already on the phone, and I tell the dude “No! Go get a job, like everybody else, then you’ll have money and cigarettes Mutherf&#$@÷”! 😡
So then, old dude gets all pissy, and holds his hands together like a gun, like with his fingers and his hands, making like a pistol shape, pointing his “Air Finger Handgun” into my driver’s window at me.
“It was at that moment your honor, that I blacked out”
I shut off my engine, reach down by the driver door, pop the trunk, shove him away from my ride with my driver door, I make the 3 to 5 steps I needed to get to my 3 ton floor jack handle out the trunk.
Then, the lights changes, and traffic on the ramp, are now yelling at me tell me “He ain’t worth it”, and other motorists proceeding onto Newberry Rd, were calling the cops. 🤣
Or ASO, or whoever 911 could dispatch.
I don’t know if people wanted to protect the homeless guy from me, or me from the homeless guy? When he seen the metal jack handle, or the half that I grabbed, he took off up under the I75 overpass.
Like he ran off pretty fast too 😆
So now,,, traffic is blowing horns at me, and the “altercation” if you will, was over.
For whatever reason, GPD officer’s called me about one hour later to get a “description” and to tell me, “Unfortunately Panhandling is Legal in Gainesville, and there not much we can do about it”.
Well, the moral of the story is that’s fine. Panhandling is Legal in Gainesville,,,,,
Therefore I keep Bond Money……
😐