By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
This crook didn’t stand a chance. He picked the wrong shop owner to steal from – a marathon runner. He picked the wrong location – next to the police station. And he ran the wrong direction – almost getting hit by the city prosecutor’s car before being nabbed by two strangers.
Amy Craft Ahrens has chased down shoplifters before – four times, actually. But on Tuesday, the For Keeps shop owner got a little extra help from bystanders. In the end, two good Samaritans tackled the suspected thief, and Craft Ahrens returned to her shop with the stolen purple Vera Bradley bag.
Police were quickly on the scene, since the For Keeps shop shares an alley with the police station. Bowling Green Police Chief Tony Hetrick was sitting in his office with Major Justin White when they heard shouting in the alley. They looked out the window.
“We saw Amy running, chasing after someone,” Hetrick said. He couldn’t tell exactly what she was yelling, but “you could tell it was loud and angry.”
It all started around noon, when Craft Ahrens was on the phone with a vendor in her shop at 144 S. Main St. She saw a man come in the front door of the store. He walked along the aisle with Vera Bradley items, then headed to the back door. As he walked out the door, “I could see something purple in his hand.” She recognized it as a $108 Vera Bradley bag.
“I said, ‘I’ve got to go chase a shoplifter’ and threw the phone down,” Craft Ahrens said.
If she would have been thinking clearly, Craft Ahrens said she would have just approached the man quietly. “But I yelled ‘stop,’ and immediately he started running.”
“I was yelling, ‘Stop thief,’ like right out of a movie. Who does that?”
The man – Randy Arndt – ran out into traffic on Wooster Street, and was almost hit by a car driven by City Prosecutor Matt Reger, who then pulled over in the alley to help. A couple was walking on Wooster Street, and heard Craft Ahrens yelling. The pedestrian, Chris Burden, basically “hip-checked him and knocked him to the ground,” Hetrick said.
Meanwhile, another car on Wooster Street pulled into the alley, and a passenger, Collin Dille, got out and helped when Arndt tried to get up and run again, the chief said.
Dille told police he saw Craft Ahrens running after Arndt. “He didn’t think she could catch up.”
Craft Ahrens, an experienced runner who has completed several marathons, was at a disadvantage since she had a dress on, Hetrick said.
Craft Ahrens is sure she could have caught up with the shoplifter, if she hadn’t been wearing flip-flops and just completed a big run recently. “I had just run a 40-mile race last week,” she said. “Had I had my running shoes on, I would have caught him.”
As shop owner, she tells her staff to not confront shoplifters. “But it was just a natural instinct. I was just so mad.”
After Arndt was subdued, Craft Ahrens retrieved the bag. She realized her store was left unattended, so she ran back there as Reger handled the scene with police.
Arndt, 37, of 140 N. Main St., Bowling Green, told police he needed the bag for money. He told police, “I screwed up.”
He already had a warrant for theft, and was placed in the county jail with a new theft charge. “He’s a regular with us,” Hetrick said.
The police chief praised the good Samaritans for getting involved. “We very much appreciate when people get involved, when people don’t tolerate criminal activity,” he said. “These guys went above and beyond.”
Craft Ahrens was thankful for the strangers coming to her aid. “It was very nice for people to get involved. Most people don’t nowadays,” she said. “It’s a testament to the community we live in.”
