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Deputy Foils Getaway on Motorized Wal-Mart Shopping Cart

(AP Photo)

SPRING HILL, FL — It was a getaway that didn’t get very far.

When a Hernando County sheriff’s deputy spotted Jeremiah Reardon at about 1 a.m. Wednesday, Reardon was cruising south on Mariner Boulevard.

The chase didn’t last very long, and was definitely of the slow-speed variety.

Reardon was piloting a motorized shopping cart that he allegedly stole from a Wal-Mart, according to a police report. He was waving a small flashlight in the darkness both as a headlight and as a way to flag down a passing motorist so he could ask for a lift in a somewhat faster vehicle.

The only ride Reardon, 27, was able to snare was to the Hernando County Jail in the back of a police cruiser.

An employee of the Wal-Mart on Cortez Boulevard told deputies she saw Reardon drive the cart off of the store’s property from a rear entrance and head toward Mariner Boulevard, a short distance away. Two store employees ran after him and tried to detain him until deputies arrived.

Reardon told deputies he took the $2,500 shopping cart only because he had a broken leg and couldn’t get a ride to his home on Santee Street in Spring Hill.

A search of Reardon yielded a dozen methadone tablets in a small canister. Deputies said the pills had been prescribed to Reardon’s mother.

Reardon faces charges of grand theft, possession of a controlled substance, and probation violations. He remains in the Hernando County Jail without bond.

[St. Petersburg Times via YellowBrix]