A 44-year-old Indiana County man with a taste for stolen Slim Jims hit a Sheetz employee with his car as he fled the store near Blairsville last month, police said.
James Fitzgerald Higgins, of Josephine, is in the county jail on $50,000 bail in connection with the Nov. 24 incident at the Sheetz store in Burrell Township, state police said.
Police allege that Higgins stole multiple Slim Jims from the Route 22 store and was followed to his car by an employee. While fleeing in a red Volkswagen Beetle, Higgins put the car in reverse and struck the leg of a female employee as she was recording his license plate number.
Meanwhile, troopers connected Higgins to four other retail theft incidents in the county between Nov. 17 and Dec. 1, according to state police spokesman Trooper Clifford Greenfield. Higgins is charged with reckless endangerment, multiple retail theft and related charges.
Tips from the public resulted in Higgins’ arrest Friday, Greenfield said.
A preliminary hearing is Dec. 17 before Homer City District Judge Susanne V. Steffee.
