Not on my watch: Off-duty Jasper County cop shuts down robbery at Ridgeland grocery store

Evan McKenna
·2 min read
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A Georgia man picked the wrong day to nab a wad of cash from a grocery store clerk in Ridgeland. An off-duty Jasper County deputy waiting in the checkout line chased the suspect out the front door and tackled him in the parking lot.

Lt. Adam Thompson quickly took notice of a masked robber who entered the B&T’s Food Fresh Market on East Main St. around 2:10 p.m. Sunday and made a beeline for a cash register. Telling the clerk he had a gun, the suspect reached over the counter and grabbed about $850 in cash.

Thompson followed the man, who “punched him in the mouth” near the store’s entrance and ran out, said Chief Jeff Crosby, a spokesperson for the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office. Noticing the man was not actually armed, the off-the-clock cop tackled the suspect in the parking lot. A store employee helped hold him down before Ridgeland officers arrived and arrested the man three minutes later.

The unlucky robber was identified as Ronald Bruce Barnard, 58, a resident of Hinesville, Georgia. He was wearing gloves and a wig to conceal his identity, according to Lt. Chris Warren of the Ridgeland Police Department.

Despite not being armed, Barnard was booked at the Jasper County Detention Center on a charge of armed robbery because he used the threat of a gun to carry out the crime, Warren said. He was denied bond at a hearing Monday morning.

Commended for his quick thinking and heroism, Thompson is the leader of the department’s VICE Unit, which handles enforcement of illegal drugs, sex trafficking and other organized crime across the county. “That is his passion,” Crosby said of the deputy, who came to lead the unit in early 2021 after previous work at the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and Bluffton Police Department. “I can’t say enough about him. He’s a great guy.”

Thompson was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when he took the robber down, Crosby said, resulting in skinned knees and other minor injuries. The chief noted that “a deputy sheriff is a deputy 24/7” and can make arrests even while out of uniform.