MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A 71-year-old man was arrested after deputies said he pepper-sprayed three people during a confrontation in a Publix parking lot in southwest Miami-Dade.<\/p>\n
The incident occurred just before 3:30 p.m. at a Publix located at 15771 SW 152nd St. in the county\u2019s Country Walk area, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Deputies said the suspect, Julio Rodriguez, is accused of accelerating his vehicle toward a man who was attempting to cross the parking lot to retrieve a shopping cart, nearly striking him.<\/p>\n
The victim told deputies a verbal argument followed, during which Rodriguez allegedly reached into his vehicle\u2019s center console, retrieved a bottle of pepper spray, exited the car and sprayed the man, as well as the man\u2019s wife and another bystander, according to the report. <\/p>\n
Deputies said Rodriguez then got back into his vehicle and fled the scene. The victim was able to provide officers with a photo of the vehicle\u2019s license plate, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Authorities later located Rodriguez, who lives near the Publix where the incident occurred, and took him into custody without further incident, the report states. <\/p>\n
Deputies said Miami-Dade Fire Rescue transported Rodriguez to Jackson South Medical Center before he was taken to jail. <\/p>\n
Jail records show he is facing one count of aggravated battery on a person 65 years or older and two counts of battery. <\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, he was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where his bond was listed at $3,000. He was also ordered to stay away from the victims. <\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A 71-year-old man was arrested after deputies said he pepper-sprayed three people during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-241981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}