A 44-year-old man sat drinking water in the lobby of a North Charleston Wells Fargo for an extended period before employees asked him to leave, and police say he responded by threatening to shoot the staff and blow up the bank. Christopher Lee Williams was arrested shortly after the confrontation Wednesday morning, accused of also damaging an employee's vehicle in the parking lot before officers tracked him down at a neighboring business.
According to WCBD News 2, police say Williams became angry and belligerent after staff at the branch, located in the 4400 block of Dorchester Road, told him to leave. Officers say he threatened to shoot employees and blow up the bank, making a hand gesture resembling a handgun before he was confronted. Separate police blotter records logged by the North Charleston Police Department show officers were dispatched to the branch shortly before 9:30 a.m. on August 19 after bank staff reported that Williams, who was known to employees, had been sitting in the lobby for an extended period before escalating.
Vehicle Damage Leads to Property Charge
Police say Williams slammed his hands repeatedly on an employee's vehicle, leaving two visible dents in the trunk. The vehicle's owner told officers the damage had not existed before the incident, per the same account. Officers eventually located Williams at a neighboring business and took him into custody.
Williams now faces charges of aggravated breach of peace and malicious injury to property, the station's report notes. Under South Carolina Code Section 16-11-510, malicious injury to personal property is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine when the damage is valued at $2,000 or less, but the charge becomes a felony carrying up to 10 years in the South Carolina Department of Corrections if the damage exceeds that threshold, according to Chambers Law. It remains unclear what dollar value investigators have assigned to the dents in the employee's trunk, which would determine how the property charge is ultimately prosecuted.
A Familiar Face for Bank Staff
The dossier of police records suggests Williams was no stranger to law enforcement or, apparently, to Wells Fargo staff before Wednesday's outburst. Booking records indicate Williams had previously been arrested by North Charleston police on an indecent-exposure charge. It is not publicly confirmed whether Wells Fargo itself had previously issued Williams a formal trespass notice.
The dossier also references earlier General Sessions and Bond Court dockets associated with Williams.
Aggravated Breach of Peace and the Legal Threshold
Aggravated breach of peace has been cited in prosecutions involving serious public disturbances, according to The Sumter Item. The available reports do not say whether police recovered a firearm or explosive device at the scene.
Following his arrest, Williams was transported to the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center at 3841 Leeds Avenue in North Charleston, a four-building regional jail operated by the Charleston County Sheriff's Office with a rated capacity of 1,693 inmates, according to the Charleston County Sheriff's Office. It has not been publicly reported whether formal bond conditions have since been set in his case.
A Busy Retail Corner With a Troubled Past
The Wells Fargo branch is located in the 4400 block of Dorchester Road, an area with nearby businesses. A different, more severe investigation occurred a decade earlier: in April 2012, police investigated the unsolved fatal shooting of liquor store owner Matthew Renken inside Port City Liquors, as previously reported by the Post and Courier.
Wednesday's incident arrives against a backdrop of declining bank crime nationally. Federal bank crime violations dropped to 1,362 in 2023, the lowest annual figure recorded since before 1990, per the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Bank Crime Statistics report. Statewide crime figures are also compiled in the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's 2024 Crime in South Carolina report.
