Investigators say Glenn Stuart Hartman admitted positioning his vehicle outside a Delray Beach farmers market and deliberately accelerating toward a stranger.

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — A 73-year-old man accused of deliberately driving into a stranger outside a farmers market told investigators he had gone there not to shop but to wait for someone to cross in front of his vehicle, according to a Delray Beach police account of the Sept. 13 incident.

Police say Glenn Stuart Hartman backed into a parking space at The Boys Farmers Market on South Military Trail and remained there until a pedestrian walked into his path. Investigators allege Hartman then accelerated and struck the man, who escaped with injuries to his lower left leg and hand after pushing against the vehicle. Hartman was arrested and accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to later local reporting. The case rests heavily on what police describe as Hartman’s own statements after the collision, including an alleged admission that the contact was intentional.

The incident was first reported to officers as a vehicle striking a pedestrian in the market parking lot. Responding police found the injured man sitting on a curb in the northern part of the property. According to the probable cause account cited in reports, officers saw an injury around the man’s left ankle and shin. The man told investigators he had parked on the west side of the lot and was walking toward the entrance when a white vehicle appeared to turn toward him deliberately. He said he pushed off the vehicle as it approached, limiting the impact largely to his lower leg.

That description initially gave police an account from the person who was struck. Investigators later obtained what they say was a much more direct explanation from Hartman himself. Police went to Delray Medical Center, where Hartman was receiving treatment. After officers advised him of his Miranda rights, Hartman gave a sworn statement that police said was captured on body-camera video. According to the affidavit, Hartman acknowledged that he had intentionally hit the pedestrian rather than losing control of the vehicle or striking the man by accident.

The police account says Hartman described making a decision before he reached the market. The affidavit states that he told investigators he had awakened depressed and, for the first time, wanted to hurt someone other than himself. Police say he then drove to The Boys Farmers Market, backed into a space and waited for a person to pass the front of his vehicle. When a detective asked whether he had gone to the market to shop, Hartman allegedly said he had not. According to the affidavit, Hartman said that when the pedestrian passed in front of him, he “stepped on the gas.”

Investigators did not identify evidence in the available reports suggesting that Hartman knew the pedestrian before the encounter. The police affidavit, as described by Law&Crime and other outlets, instead portrays the person who was hit as an apparently random target. It does not identify another individual Hartman specifically intended to strike. That distinction is central to the allegation because police are not describing a dispute that escalated in the parking lot. Their account is that Hartman arrived, positioned the vehicle and waited until someone happened to walk in front of it.

A separate development at the hospital added another layer to the investigation. Before officers arrived to question Hartman there, an emergency-room physician placed him under Florida’s Baker Act, according to the affidavit. Police said Hartman had made an unsolicited statement indicating that he had driven to the market intending to target someone because he was having homicidal thoughts. Florida’s Baker Act provides a legal process for involuntary examination in qualifying mental-health emergencies. The hospital action was separate from the criminal allegation, and the public reports do not establish a psychiatric diagnosis or explain the source of the thoughts police attributed to Hartman.

The impact also affected another shopper’s property and gave investigators a glimpse of how much worse the incident might have been. A woman identified by WPBF only as Lynne said Hartman’s vehicle struck her parked car with enough force to push it over a concrete parking stop. She and her husband were still inside the market. Lynne told the station they had finished shopping but she went back to buy cold cuts before they returned to the vehicle. When they came outside, she said, emergency vehicles were in the lot and their car had been moved by the impact. She initially thought the other driver might have suffered a medical emergency.

Lynne’s account did not establish what Hartman intended or replace the police evidence, but it illustrated the setting in which the collision occurred: an ordinary market parking lot with shoppers walking between vehicles and the entrance. She told WPBF that she later read the arrest information and became alarmed by what police alleged. Her comments also show that at least one other occupied part of the parking area was affected even though the reported physical injuries to the pedestrian were not described as life-threatening. Authorities have not publicly identified the injured man in the reports reviewed for this story.

Early accounts differed on Hartman’s custody status. Law&Crime reported after the arrest that he was being held in the Palm Beach County Jail without bond and listed an Oct. 13 court appearance. WPBF subsequently reported that a judge set bond at $75,000 and ordered Hartman to comply with recommended treatment if released. The station also reported that Hartman declined to participate in his initial court appearance. Those reports were published in the days after his arrest, and no reliable source reviewed for this article provided a confirmed account of what occurred at the previously listed Oct. 13 proceeding.

The available reports also use somewhat different descriptions of the initial charge. An arrest-record listing describes the booking category broadly as a homicide-related felony involving an act that could cause death, while WPBF identified the criminal charge as aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Charging language can change as a case moves from an arrest report into formal prosecution, and the reviewed material does not establish whether prosecutors have since amended, replaced or supplemented the allegation. Hartman is accused, not convicted, and the police version of events remains an allegation unless proved in court or admitted through a legally accepted plea.

For now, the most detailed public account remains the probable cause narrative describing the injured pedestrian’s statement, Hartman’s alleged hospital interview and the Baker Act intervention. Investigators have not publicly explained whether additional surveillance video, vehicle data or witness testimony was collected, and the reports reviewed do not disclose a confirmed motive beyond the statements police attribute to Hartman. His previously reported Oct. 13 court date has passed, but an updated disposition from that proceeding could not be independently confirmed as of publication.

Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.