Background: News footage of the Whole Foods store in Olathe, Kan., where an elderly woman was attacked (WDAF). Inset: Christopher Brewer (Johnson County Sheriff's Office).
A Kansas woman was in a parking lot outside a Whole Foods store when a man with a hammer allegedly attacked her.
Christopher Brewer, 50, was arrested on Sunday and charged with aggravated battery after police said he hit an 85-year-old woman in the head with a hammer. The woman, who has not been named publicly, was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery for facial fractures. According to a criminal complaint obtained by local Kansas City, Missouri-based Fox affiliate WDAF, a shopper loading groceries into his car in the parking lot of an Olathe Whole Foods store heard the woman scream and saw a man, later identified as Brewer, hitting the woman with a hammer.
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Police said that officers responded to the location at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday and Brewer was still at the scene when they arrived. According to court documents, the other shopper who intervened in the alleged attack said Brewer made several statements, including "I'm a person too" and "You don't know what you're doing."
Brewer was arrested while first responders provided aid to the elderly woman, who was on the ground with lacerations to her skull and nose. According to the Olathe Reporter, when police searched Brewer's car, they allegedly found a bag of marijuana and a metal pipe containing marijuana.
When detectives questioned Brewer, he allegedly told them, "My name is Chris, and I hit someone today, but I don't know more. That's what I would like to say, and at some point in time could [sic] find out what happened to him because I need to talk about that."
WDAF reported that the woman was placed in intensive care after surgery, but did not have a more recent update on her condition. A reporter from the station spoke to the victim's neighbor, Sherill Benson, who said the woman regularly shopped at that Whole Foods store. Benson told WDAF, "The day she had been here, she said she had been at the store and was going to go home and have a salad from there."
Brewer was charged with aggravated battery and booked into the Johnson County Jail. His bond was set at $35,000 after his first court appearance on Monday. He is scheduled to appear in court again on Dec. 11 for a preliminary hearing.