The brazen armed robbery of a North Augusta man along Broad Street on Friday afternoon has yielded one arrest.
Santonio Walker, 34, was arrested for the armed robbery of the 29-year-old man, according to authorities.
The victim said he was walking along Augusta’s Broad Street near 5th Street around 4 p.m. Friday when he pulled out his cash to make sure he had enough to buy a drink. Soon after, three black males and one black female in hoodies surrounded him.
One of the suspects showed him a revolver while another snatched the $100 cash from his hand and pushed him to the ground, according to authorities. The group then ran toward Ellis Street.
Investigators searched the area and found Walker at the Budgetel Inn & Suites on 5th Street. He was arrested and held at the Richmond County Detention Center. No other suspects have been identified.
Walker is a repeat offender with a history of robbery and violent domestic assaults. As a teenager in 2007, he and his brother attacked a man and his wife in their car while they drove along Gordon Highway, authorities said.
He was originally charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault and obstruction, but prosecutors pleaded the charges down to theft, misdemeanor simple battery and obstruction, and he got three one-year prison sentences for each. But Walker served a third of that in prison and violated his probation soon after his release, according to online records. (His brother, Robert Terrell Walker, got a five-year prison sentence.)
In more recent years, Santonio Walker has been arrested for a series of violent domestic incidents, including a 2016 assault where he ripped the hair out from his girlfriend as she was calling 911 for help. The victim said Walker punched her and broke her phone. Arriving deputies found the victim with a bloody mouth and a busted lip. She was holding a large patch of her own hair as officers arrived. Judge Patricia Booker gave Walker probation in that case.
Last October, he was again charged with domestic violence for a physical assault on his girlfriend inside a gas station in which Walker grabbed a phone from the victim as she tried to call for help. He pleaded guilty in that case and got a six-month jail sentence. It’s unclear how much of that he served.
