WHIPKEY

Soon after Wheeling resident Randy Whipkey was arrested Wednesday after a car chase-turned-foot chase, he found himself facing additional felony charges from having allegedly held up the Benwood Gumby’s earlier in the week.

Whipkey, 37, of Wheeling, was arrested early Wednesday morning after a brief chase during which he was apprehended in the woods behind Ohio Valley Ford in Moundsville. At the time of his arrest, Whipkey also was charged with warrants from Monday evening.

According to Benwood police, a caller reported the store robbery around 2 a.m. A bystander at the scene told police she saw a man running north on Jacob Street just up the road. Following another bystander’s directions, police pursued the suspect but were unable to immediately locate him. He was identified by a second bystander as a Whipkey. The bystander also said Whipkey had been his longtime friend.

The bystander told police he had watched Whipkey enter the store before he ran out several minutes later with an armful of cigarette cartons. Inside, the clerk, who was crying, told police that she feared for her safety when Whipkey had entered and said she was afraid Whipkey was going to sexually assault her by following her into the back of the store. Whipkey had been banned from the establishment previously. She said she feared this outcome because Whipkey had previously flirted with her and displayed aggressive body language toward her, according to police.

Whipkey had warrants issued for his arrest from the incident, although he was not arrested until Wednesday morning.

Around 12:11 a.m. Wednesday, a bystander called Moundsville police saying that he believed a man in the Walmart parking lot was shoplifting and packing televisions into the trunk of the car he was driving. Police were directed to the nearby Sleep Inn where Whipkey was parked with the televisions allegedly visible in the car. When an officer, assisted by a bystander, parked around his car to confront him, Whipkey allegedly threw the car into reverse and smashed into the bystander’s car and scraped the police cruiser. He then pulled forward, hopped a curb and escaped.

Police followed bystanders to where Whipkey had been seen last at Ohio Valley Ford. When they found him, he was climbing a chain-link fence behind the property. A Moundsville police officer used his taser to subdue Whipkey, but because of his position, he fell off the fence on the other side, where he was able to get up and continue running. He was located and apprehended when Moundsville police, assisted by state police, Glen Dale and Marshall County Sheriff’s officers searched the woods to track him down.

Moundsville police chief Tom Mitchell said the damage to the police cruiser amounted to nothing more than a scrape on the paint, but the bystander’s car experienced significant damage. The car Whipkey was driving, which was determined to have been stolen, also had significant damage, Mitchell said.

“There’s a high potential for injury, and (Whipkey)’s the kind of guy who’ll run you over to escape,” Mitchell said. “That’s why it becomes so dangerous. People get their fight-or-flight response. … This guy, he’s not even just a shoplifter, he was on a spree. He went in to rob the place. He tried to ditch the car because it was a stolen car.”

Whipkey remains at the Northern Regional Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond. His preliminary hearing is to be before magistrate Tom Wood at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday.