Attempted heist at urgent care goes awry when man falls through ceiling, Florida cops say
A man in Florida is accused of trying to rob an urgent care by rappelling down from the roof and crashing through the ceiling, police said.
The office manager at the Gainesville CareSpot Urgent Care walked into work Sept. 28 and came face-to-face with a man holding a butcher knife and laptop, according to an arrest affidavit from the Gainesville Police Department. The man was pushing a wheelchair full of items from the office, according to the affidavit.
The manager confronted the man, 36, and he ran off, leaving the loaded wheelchair behind, police said.
Inside the urgent care, police found a hole in the ceiling and ceiling tiles on the floor, according to the affidavit.
Police said the man climbed onto the roof and pried open a vent to get inside the building.
He then rappelled from the roof down to a beam in the ceiling, according to the report, and tried to climb onto a decorative plastic piece in the ceiling.
Police said that when he stepped onto the plastic, it broke and the man fell 15 feet to the floor of the urgent care, tearing down ceiling tiles as he fell.
Once inside, the man ripped open cabinets, knocked the lock off a storage locker and began to pile items from the urgent care into a wheelchair, according to the affidavit.
He grabbed a set of keys from an office drawer and about $192 from the office till, police said.
The man put a cast on his wrist and was walking with a limp and a cane when police found him at a nearby abandoned building, according to the affidavit.
When asked his name, the man told police a fake name and said he had a twin, WCJB reported, citing an arrest report.
Police said his injuries were from falling from the ceiling, but the man told officers he had been beaten up, according to the outlet.
He was taken into custody and charged with armed burglary, theft, criminal mischief and giving a false identity to a law enforcement officer, according to the arrest affidavit.
Gainesville is about 130 miles north of Tampa.
This story was originally published October 6, 2023 at 11:31 AM with the headline "Attempted heist at urgent care goes awry when man falls through ceiling, Florida cops say."
