Red Bull lands a Miami-Dade couple in Florida Keys jail
A man and woman from Miami-Dade County were arrested Tuesday morning after police say they stole several cases of the energy drink Red Bull from a Florida Keys supermarket and told the store manager who tried to stop them that they were armed.
Derrik Antwan Buford, 31, and Alexandra Angela Benton, 29, who are from Cutler Bay and Florida City, respectively, are in Monroe County jail with no bond information immediately available.
According to the Monroe sheriff’s office, deputies were called to the Winn-Dixie at mile marker 105, bay side around 9:20 a.m. for reports that two people walked out of the store with several cases of Red Bull for which they did not pay.
A store manager confronted them in the parking lot, and the man, who police say is Buford, told her he had a gun. The manager did not see a weapon, said sheriff’s office spokesman Adam Linhardt.
Buford and Benton left the store property and headed north in a Honda on U.S. 1. Deputies, with backup from the Florida Highway Patrol and Miami-Dade County police, pulled them over on the 18 Mile Stretch of the highway that leads in and out of the Keys from Florida City at mile marker 117.
They did not find a gun in the car. They did find several items of clothing with the price tags still on them and a large-screen television, Linhardt said.
“How the suspects came into possession of those items remains under investigation,” he said.
Deputies also found two Winn-Dixie baskets in the car packed with the cases of Red Bull, according to the sheriff’s office.
Benton told police that she and Buford stole the beverages because they knew someone who would buy them. She said they were just evicted from their motel room in Florida City and needed cash, the sheriff’s office said.
They were booked into jail on two misdemeanor counts each of possession of stolen property, misdemeanor conspiracy and petit theft. Buford also faces a felony count of driving with a suspended license.
LInhardt said other charges may be pending.
