Cops reel in suspect in curious Bass Pro Shops boot vanishings

Under Armour boots appeared to be mysteriously walking out of the Bass Pro Shops distribution center in north Macon last month. According to a Bibb County sheriff’s report, a security official there received word from other Bass Pro stores that Under Armour boxes shipped from Macon had arrived not with new $150 boots in them but rather with old pairs of shoes. Security officials soon zeroed in on a suspect. Someone noticed that a 55-year-old man who worked in the distribution center had arrived at work one morning wearing black tennis shoes. The sheriff’s report said that when the man took a break about 9 a.m. he was seen walking out in Under Armour boots. When he returned to work about 15 minutes later, the man had on moccasin slippers. When he went to lunch, he was again seen wearing Under Armour boots. “He went out to his vehicle each time he went on break,” the sheriff’s report noted. “It was apparent (he) was swapping and hiding his own personal shoes and (exchanging them) for the new Under Armour boots.” A search of his car revealed two pairs of the boots. The employee reportedly denied stealing the boots or changing shoes at all. He was jailed on theft charges.

Two women on Downing Circle off Canterbury Road in southwest Macon told the cops that another woman in her late 30s was, as an Aug. 2 sheriff’s report put it, acting in a “menacing manner” and threatening to whip their butts. She then showed hers. “The suspect proceeded to pull down her pants, exposing her naked buttocks to both victims, slapping her buttocks and telling them they could ‘kiss my a--.’” The woman was jailed on simple assault and indecent exposure charges.

Dispatches: An alleged shoplifter at Walmart on Gray Highway in east Macon tried to get away with $200 worth of meat, some pants and three sticks of deodorant. A sheriff’s report of the Aug. 2 theft said store employees confronted the man. He left behind the trousers and the meat, but he got away with the deodorant “which was in his pants.” . . . A woman whose Nissan Altima got a flat tire had to leave the car overnight on Bailey Avenue, a few blocks south of Napier Avenue. When she returned the next day to fix the tire, one of the car’s windows was smashed. Her driver’s license and $5 she had left in the car were gone. In a patch of dirt and dust on the car’s trunk, someone had written, “Good Luck.”

Note to midstate law enforcement agencies: Email reports of unusual situations your officers encounter to Telegraph reporter and Cop Shop columnist Joe Kovac Jr. at jkovac@macon.com.