Bacon Lover In Piggly Wiggly Rampage

MAY 25--Meet Lonneshia Shafaye Appling.

The Georgia woman, 26, was so determined to shoplift beer, bacon, cheese, and chicken wings from a Piggly Wiggly that she punched, spit at, and pepper-sprayed store workers who confronted her as she tried to flee the supermarket Wednesday afternoon, according to cops.

Appling, pictured in the adjacent mug shot, allegedly hid items worth $88.27 in a canvas bag. She “attempted to check out, only putting one item on the counter,” according to a worker quoted in an Athens-Clarke County Police Department report.

When a Piggly Wiggly employee--who had been tipped to the pilfering by a shopper--asked Appling about the concealed items, she tried to exit the store. After worker Jonathan Orr tried to stop Appling, she “pulled out some pepper spray and sprayed him in the face.”

Appling kept spraying as several workers tried to keep her from fleeing. The 340-pound Appling also allegedly punched Orr in the face and spit on the 28-year-old employee. As she successfully bolted from the Athens store, Appling “was dropping beer cans out of her purse.”

Responding to a 911 call, a cop reported spotting “a very large black female in a purple dress standing there screaming at two store employees” who followed her outside the Piggly Wiggly, which was filled with a choking cloud of pepper spray. Police then arrested Appling, whose rap sheet includes several prior shoplifting convictions and outstanding arrest warrants in three Georgia counties.

Cops prepared an inventory of the items Appling sought to swipe: five packages of cheese; eight cans of Coors Light; vegetable oil; chicken wings; and five packages of bacon. As first reported by the Athens Banner Herald, she was charged with a variety of crimes, including aggravated assault, theft, simple battery, and disorderly conduct.

While in police custody, Appling told a cop to add whatever charges he wanted “because she was going to plea bargain and half of the charges would be dropped anyway,” according to the report. She also asked Officer Nathaniel Franco if her arrest would make the police blotter, requesting that the cop make his report “more interesting so that her arrest would make” the department’s compendium of notable incidents.

The unemployed--and now incarcerated--Appling “also commented that store personnel shouldn’t chase people like that because they could get themselves hurt.” Or shoplifters could get busted. (3 pages)