A 35-year-old man in Florida is accused of using his 6-year-old daughter to try to steal from a local Ace Hardware, only to ditch the child in the store parking lot as he fled from a security guard who confronted him about the theft.
Joshua Robert Spirit was taken into custody earlier this week and charged with multiple crimes, including child abuse without great bodily harm, child neglect without bodily harm, and resisting an officer without violence, records show.
According to an arrest report obtained by Law&Crime, the incident took place at about 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 10, at the Ace Hardware in the 3700 block of University Avenue in Gainesville. A security guard at the establishment said Spirit and his daughter were in the tool section of the store when Spirit put some merchandise “into his person” and into his daughter’s bag. The 6-year-old was allegedly “watching for people” while her father took the items…