SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A woman who pleaded guilty to assault and attempted robbery in connection with hitting a Walmart employee with a shopping cart while trying to steal has been placed on probation for five years.

Sky Bailey Gray also will be required to undergo drug treatment as part of her sentence. Judge Jerry Harmison suspended the execution of a seven-year prison sentence and ordered her to report to probation and parole.

Gray, 24, of Galena, was in a Springfield Walmart when the altercation took place, according to a police report. The employee who was struck suffered a broken arm.

Original story, published Jan. 12, 2023:

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A woman was arrested on suspicion of hitting a Walmart employee with a shopping cart while trying to steal, resulting in breaking the employee’s arm.

Sky Bailey Gray, 24, of Galena, Missouri, was in a Springfield Walmart when the altercation took place, according to a police report.

Around 9:10 p.m. on Dec. 6, Springfield Police Department officers responded to a report of a robbery at a Walmart. When they arrived, they spoke to a victim, an elderly woman who was working as a door greeter. The door greeter asked to see the receipt of a woman who was leaving the store and placed her hand on the woman’s shopping cart. The woman attempted to pull the cart away from the door greeter, who grabbed the cart again.

In response, the woman pushed the cart into the door greeter, knocking her to the ground. The door greeter was taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a fractured right shoulder.

When police reviewed security footage, they identified the woman as Gray by the star tattoo on her right hand. Gray was arrested on Jan. 10.

When interviewed by police, Gray admitted to pushing the cart into the door greeter but did not intend to hurt her. She said that the door greeter touched her first and that she knew that Walmart employees were not allowed to touch shoplifters, according to the press release.

Gray is formally charged with two felonies: one count of first-degree attempted robbery and one of second-degree assault on a special victim.

Gray is scheduled for a confined docket hearing at 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 19 and a criminal setting at 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 14.