Store clerk almost shoots bolting Bud Light thief

Dispatches: It was going on 3 a.m. one morning late last month when a guy tried to dart out of a Houston Avenue food mart without paying for a case of Bud Light. The store sits at the corner of Rutherford Avenue, half a dozen or so blocks south of Eisenhower Parkway in Macon. Before the thief could slip away, the store’s clerk locked the front door automatically. The beer bandit began kicking the door, trying to get out, a Bibb sheriff’s deputy’s write-up noted. The clerk then “grabbed a revolver from behind the counter and pointed it at the male. (The clerk) advised that he was getting ready to shoot when the male finally kicked the door open and left with the case of Bud Light.” The deputy explained to the clerk that “he could not point a firearm at someone just because they were taking something.” . . . Overheard on Bibb sheriff’s radio the night of Aug. 31: “Be advised … the snake is mad.” . . . A woman who lives on Jackson Street in Macon told the police that on Aug. 10 she hid $375 in her bed sheets for her sick brother. But a nurse washed the sheets that day and the cash disappeared. . . . In mid-July, an east Macon woman told the cops that her baby’s father had taken her cellphone and then returned it to her damaged “out of spite.”

This story was originally published September 23, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Store clerk almost shoots bolting Bud Light thief."