Beer bandit caught cold-handed after sprint from convenience store, Macon cops say
Beers runs are among the more common low-level crimes at convenience marts. The culprits, more often than not, get away with their liquid loot. But as chance would have it on a recent afternoon, one alleged beer bandit was caught cold-handed — with a 24-ounce can of Miller High Life in his right hand. He was said to have had a case containing more Miller in his left hand when a Bibb County sheriff’s deputy spotted him sprinting away from USA Grocery and across Houston Avenue in Macon on Feb. 7. The deputy caught up with pilsner-pilfering suspect on Hanson Street, a few blocks south of Eisenhower Parkway. “I began asking what he was doing running across the street from the store and if he stole the beer,” the deputy’s write-up of the encounter said. “He stated he bought the beer and was running home. I began to notice his lip begin to quiver and his voice shake as if he was nervous. I advised him I have never seen anyone run from a store as quickly and into traffic in a manner to get away as fast as he did if they bought the merchandise. This is when he admitted to stealing the beer.” The suspect, 26, was jailed on a misdemeanor shoplifting charge.
Dispatches: In early January, a 67-year-old repeat shoplifting suspect who had previously, on a judge’s order, been banned from all Family Dollar stores was arrested again on suspicion of shoplifting. A Bibb sheriff’s deputy collared the suspect outside a Pio Nono Avenue Family Dollar on Jan. 10. “A pat down search indicated that he had several items in his left jacket sleeve and both front pockets,” the deputy’s report said, adding that a search “yielded four packs of Reese’s candy, four packs of Twix candy and three packs of Snickers.” . . . An “older” man was reportedly spotted inside a Family Dollar store on Shurling Drive the evening of Jan. 15 stealing a $16 container of Gain detergent and $30 worth of Tide pods. . . . Another suspected soap swiper struck at Roses on Pio Nono in mid-January, making off with 30 bars of soap worth about $80.
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.
This story was originally published March 1, 2019 at 11:00 AM.