Two 18-year-olds from Ocala, Florida, are facing criminal charges after one of them drove a riding lawnmower through the interior of a Target store while the other filmed the incident for social media, the Ocala Police Department announced April 26, 2026.
Ocala police say Janek Szkaradek piloted the mower through the Target location on SW College Road on Saturday, April 25, damaging a door in the process. His companion, Luke Charske, recorded the episode. Both were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the incident. Charske was charged as a principal to disorderly conduct for his role filming the stunt.
Authorities said the Target incident was not the first act of deliberate disruption. The night before, Szkaradek allegedly carried a leaf blower into a nearby restaurant on the same corridor and activated it inside the business. For that incident, Szkaradek faces an additional charge of criminal mischief alongside a second disorderly conduct count. No injuries were reported in either episode, though police noted the acts endangered customers and staff and resulted in property damage.
Investigators characterized the conduct as criminal, not comedic. Ocala police emphasized in their public statement that such behavior carries real legal consequences regardless of whether the intent was to generate online content.
The arrests reflect a pattern of social-media-driven retail disruptions that law enforcement agencies across the country have been grappling with as platforms incentivize increasingly reckless public stunts. Businesses have reported rising costs tied to property repairs and heightened security in response to incidents staged specifically for video distribution.
In South Carolina, state lawmakers moved last year to tighten penalties for retail-related offenses. Governor Henry McMaster signed the Organized Retail Crime Act — H. 3523, Act No. 1 — into law on March 7, 2025, creating a tiered felony structure for coordinated retail offenses and a separate aggravated charge when property damage exceeds $2,000 or physical injury results. The law allows offenses within a 90-day window to be aggregated into a single count for sentencing purposes. The SC Law Enforcement Division tracks property crime statewide; a December 2025 SLED report found overall property crime in South Carolina dropped to decades-long lows in 2024, though retail disruption incidents tied to social media have continued to surface in jurisdictions across the state.
Spartanburg County has seen its own cases of business-targeting mischief. In January 2026, Spartanburg Police arrested a man accused of vandalizing more than 17 downtown businesses, resulting in 12 counts of malicious injury to personal property and one count of trespassing. That case drew attention to the costs retail and commercial property owners absorb when criminal disruption goes unchecked.
Under South Carolina law, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief charges carry consequences that can follow young adults into employment and housing applications. The 7th Circuit Solicitor Office, which covers Spartanburg County, has jurisdiction to pursue criminal mischief cases that cause measurable property damage, and law enforcement officials across the state have highlighted the trend of social-media-fueled incidents as a growing concern for retailers.
