Shoplifter allegedly mows down employee with car

A 32-year-old East Bremerton woman was arrested Wednesday for allegedly trying to run over a Port Orchard QFC employee with her car after allegedly shoplifting $90 worth of merchandise from the grocery store.

According to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department incident report, Michelle Lynn Kraft loaded up a cart inside the QFC on Village Lane in South Kitsap with $96.87 of items, including three DVDs, two cases of soda, produce and canned foods, before exiting the store without paying for them.

According to the report, a female employee followed Kraft to the parking lot because she noticed the cart the suspect was pushing was full of items that were not bagged.

When the employee approached Kraft, who was unloading the groceries into her Mercury Cougar sedan, and asked her to come back inside the store, the suspect said she would do that once she was done putting the items in her car.

However, according to the employee, when Kraft was done loading her car she told the employee she was not coming inside the store and got in her car instead.

According to the victim and at least two witnesses on the scene, Kraft then hit the woman with her car, knocking her over and quickly exiting the parking lot.

The victim was not seriously injured, but suffered scrapes on her hand and knees.

According to the report, Kraft was quickly spotted by Port Orchard Police Officers and pulled over. She was then arrested and booked into Kitsap County Jail for first-degree robbery and held on $50,000 bail.

At her arraignment Thursday, Kraft pleaded not-guilty to one count of second-degree robbery, a strike-offense felony carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Prosecutor Tom Morris asked Judge Theodore Spearman to set Kraft’s bail at $60,000, saying he believed the defendant to be a danger to the community.

Defense attorney Tim Kelly characterized the incident as an apparent “shoplifting incident gone awry,” and asked Kraft be released on personal recognizances.

Spearman set bail at $5,000, saying since the defendant had ties to the community and the victim was not more seriously injured, he believed a lower bail was appropriate.

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