TAVARES, Fla.—A Tavares man is facing charges of robbery, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after threatening to kill a woman with a wrench if she didn’t give him a cigarette, threatening to kill another man and running up a flight of stairs to avoid arrest, according to Tavares Police Department.
According to an arrest affidavit, TPD responded to Dollar General, 395 East Burleigh Boulevard, after a woman reported she was robbed and threatened with a wrench. The woman told police she was outside smoking when a man, later identified as Michael Newton, 48, asked her for a cigarette. She told Newton she only had one left, and he allegedly brandished a silver wrench and said he would “kill her” if she didn’t give it to him.
The woman, fearing what Newton might do to her, threw a cigarette at him and ran into the store.
Newton hopped onto his orange bicycle and pedaled through the shopping center to Golden Ox, 305 East Burleigh Boulevard, where he opened the back door and screamed at a patron twice to come out so Newton could “kill him,” an employee told police.
According to the affidavit, Newton rode away on his bicycle and an officer located him at La Bella Inn, 101 West Burleigh Boulevard, where he resides. Newton fled up a flight of stairs to the second floor as the officer approached but was apprehended.
Newton told police he did not threaten the woman at Dollar General but did call her a “crusty (expletive)” before she gave him a cigarette. He said he then went to Golden Ox to confront the male patron and couldn’t understand why he had been banned from the store a few days prior.
Police located a wrench on Newton, along with a baggie with a white powdery residue. Newton was placed under arrest and transported to the Lake County Jail, where he is being held on $6,500 bond.
