GAINESVILLE, FL (352today.com) – The Gainesville Police Department (GPD) released body camera footage of their response to calls of a man using an excavator to plow into buildings, cars, power poles and ultimately crashing it into the auto department at the Walmart at Butler Plaza on Monday night.
According to the video’s on-screen text, police say callers reported a bald, white man with tattoos, wearing black shorts, no shirt and a machete inside the store.
The minute and a half long video shows officers entering the store with guns in hand. They move through the store passing a refrigerated section and customers.
The video doesn’t have any sound and comments on the Facebook post are disabled.
In less than three minutes from the time stamp of the first video, officers are escorting the man out of the store in handcuffs and passing coolers for Gator tailgating on sale for less than $25 along the way. The suspect was later identified as 47-year-old Jesse Charles Smith from Trenton.
GPD says Smith ditched the machete in the store, but Walmart staff witnessed it and were able to direct them to it.
The video narrative claims Smith stole the roughly 72,000-pound excavator from the area of SW 47th Street, drove it west through woods and over four buildings at a mini storage. “Smith spun the excavator’s boom in circles attempting to destroy as many of the buildings as possible,” said GPD’s on-screen text. It also says he ran over power poles leaving live wires on the ground.
GPD says Smith was taken to the hospital for medical clearance and then transported to jail where he was booked on multiple charges including grand theft-causing property damage over $1,000.
Smith shows up in a search of the Alachua County Court records with multiple criminal complaints against him dating back to 2016.