A shopper’s parked car was shoved over a concrete stop as police investigated an alleged intentional attack on a stranger nearby.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Lynne and her husband expected their Sunday visit to The Boys Farmers Market to end with groceries. Instead, they walked outside to emergency vehicles, a displaced car and a police investigation that authorities say began when another driver intentionally accelerated toward a stranger.
The couple had arrived at the market on South Military Trail early Sept. 13, according to Lynne’s account to WPBF. They had nearly finished the trip when she decided to return to the deli counter for cold cuts. That brief delay kept them inside while the incident unfolded in the parking lot. When the couple later emerged, Lynne said their own vehicle had been struck and forced over a concrete parking stop. Nearby, police were investigating what initially appeared to be a vehicle-versus-pedestrian collision but would soon be treated as an alleged deliberate attack.
Authorities identified the driver as 73-year-old Glenn Stuart Hartman. Police say the pedestrian who was hit had parked on the west side of the property and was walking toward the market entrance. The man told officers a white vehicle appeared to steer toward him rather than simply drifting into his path. He said he pushed against the approaching vehicle and was struck on his lower left leg. Local reporting said he also injured a hand. Responding officers found him sitting on a curb and observed an injury around his ankle and shin.
For people emerging from the store, however, the scene did not immediately reveal why the vehicles had collided. Lynne told WPBF she initially assumed Hartman might have suffered a heart attack or stroke. That assumption changed after she learned what police said Hartman told investigators. The allegation transformed the episode from what could have been interpreted as a parking-lot accident or medical emergency into a criminal case centered on intent. Police say Hartman did not merely acknowledge hitting the pedestrian; he said he had gone to the location waiting for an opportunity to hurt someone.
Investigators interviewed Hartman at Delray Medical Center after the crash. According to the probable cause affidavit cited by Law&Crime, officers advised him of his Miranda rights before taking a sworn statement recorded on body-camera video. Police allege Hartman said he had awakened feeling depressed and wanted to harm someone other than himself. He then drove to the farmers market, backed into a parking space and waited for somebody to pass in front of his vehicle. When a detective asked if shopping had brought him there, Hartman allegedly said it had not.
The alleged sequence is unusual because it removes many of the ordinary uncertainties surrounding a parking-lot collision. Police are not publicly describing a driver who confused the accelerator and brake, became distracted or reacted during a confrontation. Their affidavit says Hartman described waiting. It further says that when the pedestrian crossed the front of the car, Hartman said he “stepped on the gas.” The available reports contain no indication that Hartman and the pedestrian knew one another, and the affidavit did not identify another specific target. Police therefore characterized the person struck as someone selected because he happened to walk past.
The setting made that allegation especially stark. Farmers market parking lots routinely require customers to move between rows of vehicles, carts and storefront entrances. The ordinary movement of a shopper toward the door is precisely what police say created the opportunity Hartman had been awaiting. Yet the injuries described publicly were limited compared with what might have resulted from a direct vehicle strike. The pedestrian told investigators that he managed to push away from the vehicle, and authorities did not report that he suffered life-threatening injuries. Lynne and her husband were not beside their own car when it was hit.
That second collision provided one of the few public accounts from someone whose property was caught in the episode. Lynne said the force pushed her vehicle across a parking barrier. She told WPBF she later found herself repeatedly thinking about what might have happened had she and her husband left the store before she returned for one more purchase. Her comments are a personal reaction rather than evidence of Hartman’s intent, but they show how the alleged conduct extended beyond the person police say was deliberately targeted and into an area used by other shoppers.
At the hospital, the criminal investigation overlapped with a separate mental-health intervention. The police affidavit says an emergency-room physician placed Hartman under Florida’s Baker Act before detectives arrived. According to the document, Hartman had made an unsolicited statement that he went to the market seeking to target someone because of homicidal thoughts. The Baker Act permits involuntary examination under qualifying circumstances involving mental illness and potential danger. An involuntary examination is not itself a criminal finding, and the available public record does not provide a diagnosis or establish why Hartman allegedly experienced those thoughts.
The distinction matters because the court case and the medical intervention address different questions. The criminal proceeding concerns whether prosecutors can establish the elements of the offense charged and Hartman’s legal responsibility for his conduct. The Baker Act addresses an emergency process for evaluating a person who may present a danger. Police attributed statements about depression and homicidal thoughts to Hartman, but those statements alone do not provide a full mental-health history, and no public report reviewed for this story describes a court finding concerning his competency, sanity or any other mental-state defense.
Public reporting after the arrest also produced differing descriptions of Hartman’s detention. Law&Crime initially said he was held without bond and was expected in court Oct. 13. WPBF later reported that a judge set a $75,000 bond and required him to follow recommended treatment if released. WPBF said Hartman declined to appear for his first court proceeding. The same report identified the charge as aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. An arrest listing used broader booking language associated with an act committed during another felony that could cause death, underscoring that initial booking categories do not always mirror the precise charge later handled in court.
The reported Oct. 13 court date has now passed. No reliable post-hearing report reviewed for this article established whether that appearance occurred, whether Hartman entered a plea, whether his bond status changed or whether prosecutors filed an amended charge. Those gaps are significant because they separate the detailed arrest-stage narrative from the current procedural posture of the case. The probable cause affidavit explains why officers believed an offense occurred; it does not decide guilt. Hartman remains entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until the allegation is resolved through the court process.
The incident left two different public narratives emerging from the same parking lot: one from investigators reconstructing intent and another from shoppers who initially saw only the aftermath. Police say Hartman’s own words supplied the critical difference, turning a crash call into an accusation that a stranger had been deliberately chosen for harm. What happened after the previously scheduled October court appearance, however, has not been confirmed in the sources reviewed, leaving the criminal case’s latest status unresolved as of Oct. 21.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.