MPD: Woman Tased After Spitting on, Punching Officer at Mobile Walmart

A woman was tased after she spit on a Mobile police officer and punched him when asked to move her vehicle from a fire lane at a Walmart, according to the Mobile Police Department. The confrontation, which began as a routine parking complaint, ended with felony and misdemeanor charges and an officer exposed to a possible biohazard in the middle of a crowded store parking lot.

The officer was working an off-duty assignment at the Walmart at 1300 North University Blvd. on Friday, Sept. 4, when management reported that a woman had left two small children unattended in a vehicle parked in the fire lane, police said. Off-duty details like this one are a fixture at big-box stores across Mobile, placing a sworn officer on the property to handle thefts, disturbances and the everyday disputes that come with a high-volume retail location.

When the officer approached 45-year-old Peta Gay Angella McAlmon and asked her to move, she became aggressive and at one point spit in his face, according to police. Officers treat being spat on as more than an insult; it is considered an assault that carries real health risks, and under Alabama law it can elevate the charges a suspect faces.

McAlmon refused to give her name and walked away. When the officer stopped her, she punched him in the face, police said. The officer took McAlmon to the ground, and she continued to resist, according to police. The officer then used his Taser to gain control and handcuffed her without further incident.

Why fire lanes draw immediate attention

Fire lanes are marked along the front of nearly every large retail store in Mobile County, and the law treats them differently from ordinary parking spaces. The striped lanes exist so that fire apparatus, ambulances and police cruisers can reach the front entrance without obstruction, and vehicles left in them — even briefly — can block emergency access to a building that may hold hundreds of shoppers.

The complaint in this case carried a second concern beyond the parking violation. Management told police that two small children had been left unattended inside the vehicle while it sat in the fire lane. Police across the Gulf Coast respond to those calls regularly, particularly in warm months, when the interior of a parked car can become dangerous in a matter of minutes. Officers responding to an unattended-children call typically try to locate the parent quickly, both for the children’s safety and because leaving a young child in a vehicle can itself lead to charges.

That combination — a fire lane violation involving unattended children — is what prompted the store to call the officer working the detail rather than simply paging the vehicle’s owner over the intercom. Stores along University Boulevard and Schillinger Road handle thousands of shoppers daily, and managers lean on the officers stationed there when a situation involves safety rather than simple courtesy.

The encounter, step by step

According to the department’s account, the encounter escalated in stages. The first request was administrative: move the vehicle. The response was aggression, including spitting in the officer’s face. When McAlmon then refused to identify herself and walked away, the officer was obligated to detain her, both for the assault that had already occurred and for the underlying complaint.

The punch to the officer’s face turned a parking dispute into a felony matter. Under Alabama law, second-degree assault covers causing physical injury to another person under circumstances that include assaults on certain categories of victims, and an assault on a peace officer performing his duties is treated more seriously than a barroom scuffle between strangers. The charge is a felony and can carry a prison sentence measured in years.

The officer’s use of a Taser followed the standard escalation officers are trained to apply. When a suspect continues to resist after being taken to the ground, electronic control devices are considered a lower-risk alternative to strikes or other force, because they allow an officer to gain control without sustained physical combat. Once the Taser was deployed, police said, McAlmon was handcuffed without further incident — the outcome officers are trained to seek: control restored, no one further injured, and the arrest completed.

The charges McAlmon faces

McAlmon was charged with second-degree assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, according to the Mobile Police Department. The three charges map onto the three stages of the encounter: the assault covers the spit and the punch; disorderly conduct covers the aggressive, disruptive behavior in a public place that drew the initial complaint; and resisting arrest covers the refusal to stop, the walk-away and the continued physical resistance once the officer moved to detain her.

Second-degree assault is the charge with the most serious consequences. It is a Class C felony in Alabama, punishable by up to ten years in prison, and a conviction can also carry fines and restitution. Disorderly conduct and resisting arrest are misdemeanors, but they matter in court because they establish the sequence of a defendant’s conduct — in this case, from a parking complaint to a physical struggle with a police officer.

Spitting on an officer is treated as a form of second-degree assault in Alabama, a classification that took on added significance in recent years as departments have emphasized the health risks officers face from exposure to another person’s saliva. A suspect who spits on an officer during an arrest can face the felony count even when no other injury occurs.

Off-duty details and how they work

The officer involved was working an off-duty assignment, an arrangement in which a business pays for a sworn officer to be present on its property while the officer remains a police officer in full authority. In Mobile, those details are common at retail centers, banks and entertainment venues. The officer wears the uniform, carries department equipment and answers to the department’s policies even while on private property.

That status matters in cases like this one. Because the officer was in uniform and on duty under the terms of the detail, the response to the fire lane complaint proceeded exactly as it would have on a patrol shift: a request, an investigation of the unattended children, and an arrest once the encounter turned violent. The Walmart location at 1300 North University Blvd. sits in a busy commercial corridor of West Mobile, where the department has long maintained a visible presence at the major retail centers.

What happens next

After the arrest, McAlmon was processed and the case was referred for prosecution. Charges at this stage are accusations, and the facts will be tested in court, where prosecutors will rely on the officer’s account, any store surveillance video, and the account of the complaint that started it all.

For Mobile police, the case is also a window into the kinds of calls that dominate a shift at a retail detail. Officers assigned to stores handle shoplifting, parking complaints, welfare checks on children left in cars, and the occasional violent encounter, all in the space of a single weekend. The Sept. 4 incident began as the mildest item on that list and ended as one of the most serious.

The two children left in the vehicle were recovered unharmed, according to the department’s account of the complaint, and their welfare was the reason the store called police rather than simply waiting for the driver to return. Officers who handle unattended-children calls say the first minutes matter most: how long the children had been alone, the temperature inside the vehicle, and whether a parent can be found nearby all shape how the call ends.

McAlmon’s refusal to give her name added another layer to the encounter. Under Alabama law, a person detained by police in connection with an offense can be required to identify themselves, and walking away from an officer who is conducting a lawful investigation constitutes resistance. That is why the walk-away — an act that might seem minor on its own — became part of the resisting arrest charge.

The broader picture in West Mobile

The Walmart on University Boulevard is one of the busiest retail locations in West Mobile, drawing shoppers from surrounding neighborhoods along Cottage Hill Road, Hillcrest Road and the Airport Boulevard corridor. Retailers of that scale coordinate closely with the Mobile Police Department, and off-duty officers stationed at the store handle a steady stream of incidents that would otherwise fall to patrol units already answering calls across the city.

Police officials have said the officer involved was not seriously injured in the encounter. Exposure to spitting, punches and ground fights is among the most common ways officers are hurt on the job, and departments track those injuries closely, both for the officer’s sake and because each one is part of the record a court will consider when the charges are prosecuted.

What the charges mean in court

If the case proceeds as charged, McAlmon will face the felony assault count along with the two misdemeanors in Mobile County District Court, where initial appearances are held before cases are bound over to a grand jury when a felony is involved. Bond, trial scheduling and plea negotiations will follow the usual path for retail-related arrests, though the fact that a police officer was the victim will shape how the case is handled.

Prosecutors treat assaults on officers as a priority, and juries along the Gulf Coast have historically taken the circumstances seriously — particularly when the underlying encounter began with a safety concern involving children. The sequence described by police, from the fire lane complaint to the punch to the Taser, will be the framework both sides argue over if the case reaches trial.

For now, the department’s account stands as the public record of what happened: a vehicle in a fire lane, two children waiting inside, an officer who asked a simple question, and a response that turned a parking complaint into three criminal charges.