MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A homeless man is in custody after allegedly spitting on a business owner and chasing him with a metal pipe.
Authorities arrested the suspect Monday night after receiving a call from 1390 Ocean Drive where the 69-year-old store owner said he asked the man to leave.
According to the arrest report, the man, identified as Juan Hernandez, started “yelling loudly and cursing profanities at the victim.” After that, the man allegedly went to Lummus Park where he “grabbed a thin aluminum stick, and started walking back towards him.”
The victim told officers he looked back and “felt the defendant spit in his facial area.”
Hernandez appeared in bond court Tuesday to face a judge.
“He spit on him and spat on his facial area, that’s a battery,” Judge Mindy S. Glazer said.
The owner of Ocean Drive Gallery appeared in court to tell his side of the story.
“A stick he was holding and some threatening language and I was running to find some security shelter,” the gallery’s owner said over Zoom in court.
Following the incident, the store owner said he took off running down the sidewalk.
After calling police, he went looking for surveillance video.
Video from a neighboring hotel shows the store owner explaining to an employee what had just happened to him outside.
Hernandez, 45, was charged with assault and battery of an elderly person.
According to police, Hernandez has had multiple run-ins with the law before. He has “a felony past, is a registered sex offender and is on sexual predator probation.”
“Stay away from the victim, stay away from his art gallery, you can’t go there, sir,” Glazer told Hernandez.
The store owner told 7News it is getting difficult to run a business in Miami Beach. He said that in a 15-minute time span on Monday, two people shoplifted inside his store and then hours later, he faced Hernandez.
He added the Hernandez case is just one example of erratic behavior that is occurring on Miami Beach.
Hernandez remains in jail with his bond set at $20,000.
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