The Walmart Flat Screen Massacre
Feb 11, 2010 7 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
The man who attacked a row of flat-screen televisions at a Walmart in Lilburn on Wednesday told police that he was on medication for depression.
Westley Strellis of Lilburn was arrested without a fight after he picked up an aluminum baseball bat from the sporting goods aisle, then methodically bashed 29 TVs.
A store security camera captured a man walking casually down the TV aisle of the store on Lawrenceville Highway as he took one swing after another. A half-dozen fidgety onlookers stood at the end of the aisle, some of them backing away as he approached.
Finally, he flipped the bat away and sat on the floor.
When a Lilburn police officer approached later, Strellis was still sitting there, and he extended his arms and gestured for the officer to put handcuffs on him, according to a police report of the incident obtained by the AJC.
The arresting officer, Alex Hunt, found a bottle of prescription medicine in Strellis’ pocket. Strellis told Hunt the medication, Effexor XR, was a treatment for depression.
Patients who use the drug should “be watched for becoming agitated, irritable, hostile, aggressive, impulsive, or restless,” according to the Web site of the drug maker.
