ST. GEORGE – A St. George man was arrested Tuesday after allegedly pulling a knife on a Wal-Mart customer and threatening the man in the store’s parking lot.
Just before 10 p.m., police responded to the Bloomington Wal-Mart located at 2610 Pioneer Road on a report of a man brandishing a weapon, according to a probable cause statement filed by the St. George Police Department in support of the arrest.
A witness reported that he had just pulled up to Wal-Mart and opened his truck door when a man with a knife threatened him.
The man told the witness that “he and his employees needed to watch out otherwise they would be harmed” and then walked away from the truck, the report stated.
Officers arrived on scene and located a man matching the description of the suspect. The man was identified as 20-year-old Richard Quinn Cassels.
Officers detained Cassels and located two knives in his possession, according to the report. They asked Cassels about the incident, and the arresting officer wrote the following in the statement:
He stated he had been sitting on a bench and had been followed by the driver of a blue truck. Quinn said he then approached the driver and asked the driver not to follow him.
When the officer asked Cassels if he had his knife out, he stated he was using his Second Amendment rights, the report stated.
Cassels was arrested and booked into the Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility on a third-degree felony charge of aggravated assault.
Judge G. Michael Westfall, of the 5th District Court, ordered $5,000 bail for Cassels’ release pending trial.
He was found indigent by the court during his initial court appearance Thursday and will be represented by court-appointed attorney Michael Latowski. He is scheduled to make his next court appearance Monday afternoon.
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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This individual is lucky he didn’t get shot. A lot of concealed carriers, also exercising their second amendment rights, out there.