Twenty-four-year-old Pouch Philip Ruach was charged Friday in Freeborn County District Court with first-degree aggravated robbery.

According to court documents, at about 6 a.m. Thursday, Albert Lea police officers were dispatched to the Kwik Trip at 906 W. Front St. upon a report of an armed robbery. Dispatchers reported the suspect was a black male who left on a bicycle, possibly headed east toward the Albert Lea Tribune or north on First Avenue.

Documents stated right after the incident occurred Lt. Jeff Strom arrived at the intersection of Front Street and First Avenue and noted a man walking down the sidewalk on the south side of Front Street toward Lincoln Avenue. A bicycle was left in the roadway.

Strom turned his patrol car to follow the man walking down the sidewalk because the man matched the description given by dispatchers, according to court documents.

The lieutenant pulled his car onto Lincoln Avenue just south of the Front Street intersection. He got out of the vehicle and shouted at the man to stop walking, but the man did not halt and continued to walk southbound on the sidewalk, reports stated.

As Strom shouted commands to stop, two other officers arrived. Strom and the other officers shouted additional orders to the man to stop but did not get any response. They shouted if he did not stop he would be shocked with a Taser.

They shocked him, apprehended him and identified him as Ruach.

Reports indicated officers smelled a strong odor of alcohol on Ruach’s breath, and after searching Ruach’s pockets, they found a Kwik Trip sack containing coins and bills totaling about $326. Also in the bag were two small cash register receipts with the heading “Safe Drop” and store No. 804, which is the Front Street Kwik Trip store number.

Officers did not find a knife on Ruach, according to court documents. However, Strom was later flagged down by a passerby who told him there was a knife at the intersection of Front Street and First Avenue. The knife had a black handle and a curved shape blade, resembling a filet knife.

Later, a Kwik Trip clerk told a police detective that the man who robbed the store pulled the knife out of his pocket and had it in his right hand and later in his left hand. He kept saying “Gimme it all,” according to court documents.

Ruach was later identified in both a photo lineup and in the video from the Kwik Trip store, reports stated.

He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $35,000 fine.