A Miami man denies pulling a gun at a Starbucks over cream cheese. He blames a mother

A Miami Gardens man blames the city’s police chief for his reputation as a viral villain as the suspect who waved a gun in a Starbucks worker’s face over a bagel’s cream cheese.

According to Omar Wright, that’s not what happened. But, he believes, once Chief Delma Noel-Pratt said that’s what happened to the Starbucks worker — her daughter, Brianna Pratt — the story swiftly circumnavigated the world and led to his arrest on two charges, one of which has been dropped.

“That lady just blew it all out of proportion,” Wright said.

Wright, 38, doesn’t have a documented history of violence. He admits he’s not the owner of a sanitized mouth — “I did cuss her out,” he says. State records say he’s an officer of two companies and head of Variety 79, a Liberty City furniture store he says he ran for 17 years at 1460 NW 79th St.

And, Wright said, he’s not a fool enough to pull out a gun over something like cream cheese: “Who the hell is going to throw their life away like this?”

Wright’s arrest after the June 16 incident went viral, from the Miami Herald to New York newspapers to a Colorado television station to ABC News. But he’s truly furious that, in addition to aggravated assault with a firearm, there was a charge of armed robbery.

“Why the hell would you try to stick me with armed robbery?” said Wright, who claimed he was smiling in his mugshot because he found the charge so ridiculous.

And he blames the fuss and the armed robbery charge on Noel-Pratt, saying at an anti-gun violence rally later on June 16: “Just today, I could’ve lost my daughter. Today, she had a gun stuck in her face.

Miami Gardens Chief of Police Delma Noel-Pratt
Miami Gardens Chief of Police Delma Noel-Pratt

In an interview with Miami Herald news partner CBS4 later that week, Noel-Pratt said, “She felt in fear of her life. It was upsetting to me to know that someone would go to that extreme not having cream cheese on his bagel.”

Wright points out that even Brianna Pratt didn’t say Wright “put a gun in her face” and snorted at the idea that she feared for her life.

One morning at Starbucks

Wright said after he left the drive-thru window at the Starbucks, 19401 NW 27th Ave., just before noon, he realized his bagel didn’t have the cream cheese he requested. He said he went back to the drive-thru window, shoved himself between the window and the car there and made the mistake known.

According to the arrest report, Pratt said Wright was “yelling and screaming about not getting cream cheese on his bagel as he requested...” When she asked him to calm down and if he paid for the cream cheese, he “brandished a black hand gun and told her “I hate b------ like you and you don’t know who you’re f------ with, I’m from Carol City!”

Wright said, “You got me standing in there, hot about some neighborhood over some bulls---.”

Wright’s account: He went back to the window and talked to the person who had helped him moments before. Pratt approached from behind that person and yelled, “Did you pay for cream cheese?” to which he answered, “B----, what you think?”

Meanwhile, he said, his gun was being forced out of a pocket because of how tightly he wedged himself between the car and the window. He said he did grab the gun, “but I never raised it or no s--- like that.”

The report says “[Pratt] stated, even though [Wright] held the gun in the air and didn’t point it at her, she felt that if she didn’t give him the cream cheese, whether he paid for it or not, he was going to hurt her and her life was in danger.”

Wright was arrested the next morning, when police spotted his gray 2012 Infiniti just south of Northwest 183rd Street and 27th Avenue.

The state attorney’s office declined to prosecute on the armed robbery charge, but has charged Wright with aggravated assault and a misdemeanor, improper exhibition of a firearm. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges: “No, baby, I’m going to trial.”

Also, he’s leaving Starbucks alone: “I usually go to Dunkin’ Donuts.”