Bloomington police charged a man Tuesday in relation to reports of an Aug. 1 crime in which a Mr. Delivery driver was doused in lighter fluid and threatened.
The 45-year-old driver told police he was waiting for another driver in the Circle K parking lot on West Kirkwood Avenue around 11:20 p.m. after making his last delivery of the night when a masked man approached him.
The man reportedly squirted lighter fluid on the delivery driver and said, “Give me all of your money or I’ll light you on fire.”
The man told police he grabbed a spotlight from his car and shone it in his attacker’s eyes, causing the masked man to flee.
Bloomington Police Department detectives working on a different case received information this week that Gary Staggs, 41, told multiple people that he poured lighter fluid on a “pizza delivery driver” in early August.
Staggs was already in jail Tuesday on charges of stealing a bicycle and circular saw from a barn in late July, so officers went to the Monroe County Correctional Center to interview him.
Police said Staggs admitted to threatening the delivery driver, but he claimed he wasn’t acting like himself because he was high on Xanax.
Staggs’ preliminary charges for the incident include robbery and battery.
