Back when gas was $2 a gallon no one carried firearms with intent to commit crimes, robbed convenience stores, or slept off “a marijuna-induced buzz” (sic) in their cars. Back in February, when the price was $3.18, well you just had to rob. Now that the price is upwards of $4 a gallon, look out. All hell is going to break loose.
Under the headline “High gas prices=Armed robbery,” Bucks County Courier-Times reporter Laurie Mason tells the tale of Michael S. Ragland and Deshawn K. James, 19-year old victims of high gas prices that hail from Florida.
The pair were in Bucks County to bring Ragland’s under-aged girlfriend to visit her grandparents.
Lacking funds to get themselves home to Florida, the otherwise law abiding gun-toting minor dating drug users were forced by the high gas price to rob a Quakertown 7-11.
Ragland got into the store and managed to point his law-abiding pistol at the clerk before seeing police, fleeing, and being tackled by said police officers. James was sleeping off his law-abiding “marijuna-induced buzz” in the high gas price victim getaway car. The underaged girl that the otherwise law abiding Ragland was dating admitted to helping plot the crime high gas prices made them commit.
In court Tuesday, Ragland’s attorney, Keith Bidlingmaier, told the judge that his client plotted the robbery because he couldn’t afford gas to get home.
[...]
“They spent more money on gas than they anticipated,” he said.
[The girlfriend] and James were arrested by Quakertown police shortly after the robbery, after they sped away in the getaway car and tossed a bag of marijuana out the window. Her case was heard behind closed doors in Bucks juvenile court.
James’ attorney, Craig Penglase, said his client has never been in trouble with the law before.
“This was anomalous for him,” Penglase said.
Victim Ragland was sentenced to the bare minimum five to 10 years in state prison. Victim James got time served to 23-months in county lockup.
Honestly, I can see no reason other than high gas prices why this trio was involved in crime.
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