UPDATE: Texas mall shoplifting suspect may have been suicidal
We reported in yesterday’s LP Insider that there had been a shooting inside an Arlington, Texas, mall over the weekend. Today, police say the shoplifting suspect was shot when he pointed a pellet gun at an officer in the busy Dallas-area shopping mall may have been suicidal. An Arlington police spokesman says 21-year-old William Paul Dodd was a convicted felon and known offender who made a 911 call Sunday in which he threatened to kill officers. Police Lt. Christopher Cook says officers tracked the man inside The Parks at Arlington later Sunday after he was accused of stealing sunglasses at a store inside the mall. Cook says the man pulled a replica handgun from his waistband and was shot by an officer. Authorities say no one else was injured. Cook says Dodd is hospitalized under sedation in critical condition. [Source: WBAP820 News]
Louisiana man arrested at least 24 times for thefts
A Shreveport, Louisiana, man arrested at least 23 times for theft has made it an even two dozen with his Sunday arrest for allegedly stealing a leaf blower from Walmart. Gerald W. Bonner, 55, was arrested and charged with one count of felony theft. Shreveport police said he was arrested around 1:20 p.m. Sunday on the latest theft charge — at the Shreveport City Jail. He had landed in the jail just after midnight Saturday following his arrest late Friday on yet another, misdemeanor theft charge. Loss prevention associates at Walmart called Shreveport police to report the theft of a leaf blower.
An off-duty Shreveport officer was at the store and tried to stop a man leaving the store with the leaf blower without paying. The officer then pursued the man out of the store and into the parking lot, where the man was seen throwing the blower into the back of a red Ford F-150 pickup truck. The officer was unable to arrest the man but did recover the blower and photograph the suspect, truck and license plate as the thief fled. Detectives later used the information supplied by the off-duty officer to identify Bonner, police said. Bonner’s criminal record showed at least 23 prior theft-related charges, according to police. Bonner remains in the Shreveport City Jail. [Source: The Times]
ORC group busted stealing $29,000 in goods from mall
Four women are definitely on Santa’s naughty list after police say they were caught stealing $29,000 worth of merchandise from a Virginia mall. Fairfax County police say Glenis Brown, Aleisha Greenwood, Latasha Lawson and Stephanie Winter took the items from 13 different stores at Tysons Corner Center during Thanksgiving weekend. Investigators said the women are part of an organized retail crime group hitting stores across the country. Their alleged crimes led to 23 felony charges and three misdemeanor charges. Police say its Christmas anti-theft teams are working Tysons Corner Center, Tysons Galleria, Fair Oaks Mall, and the Springfield Town Center. Last year, the teams collectively recovered more than $315,000 in stolen merchandise and arrested more than 700 people. [Source: NBC4 News]
Employee embezzled $60K worth of merchandise
Livonia, Michigan, police have arrested a man they say may have embezzled more than $60,000 over the past few months from his home improvement store employer. Donte Griffin, 39, of Detroit was arrested and charged with several criminal counts after his fellow employees discovered evidence he had stolen tools and other merchandise from The Home Depot where he was employed. Police say Griffin, a flooring associate at the store, began taking items from the store as early as June. It’s believed he would select several items, including power tools and other equipment for sale at the store, and later place them into a large item for sale and buy that item with the tools inside it.
Police say associates noticed their inventory numbers were off in October and began reviewing security tape. Police say Griffin was seen purchasing items such as garbage cans and roof turbines in the store, though employees said the seals on those items looked tampered with. Footage later showed him removing tools in his car that were not paid for from the containers that were purchased. Other store associates became suspicious and later contacted police. “They see that pattern,” Capt. Robert Nenciarini of the Livonia Police Department said, “so they get a hold of us.” It’s believed about $60,000 worth of merchandise was taken from the store, police said. [Source: HomeTownLife]
Florida counterfeit credit card operation funded Colorado pot grow house
Federal agents say proceeds from a Miami-Dade man’s South Florida-based counterfeit credit card operation funded a marijuana grow house in Colorado. United States Secret Service agents arrested Jose Cardentey Hernandez at his home in Peyton, Colorado. The house, according to a federal complaint, was “being used to grow marijuana.” Agents had been watching Hernandez since September 2016, and through a series of search warrants, monitored his Yahoo! email account. They discovered he operated a “clandestine credit card manufacturing facility capable of producing up to 1,000 counterfeit credit cards daily,” Miami-Dade County Police Department Detective Sebastian Monros, who works with the Secret Service on a South Florida task force, wrote in the complaint. According to Monros, Hernandez received emails from another person not named in the complaint who would send hundreds of stolen credit card account numbers with “instructions to create counterfeit credit cards.”
Task force agents say that from July 5 to Sept. 5, Hernandez “spent over $6,000 on purchases from businesses specializing in equipment for cultivation facilities, commonly used for indoor marijuana production,” Monros wrote. Agents served a search warrant on Hernandez’s Miami-Dade County apartment, where the manager told them Hernandez had left to go to Colorado on “business” and that he planned on moving there full time at the end of the month. Agents searched the apartment and found several counterfeit credit cards embossed with Hernandez’s name. The same day, agents served a warrant on Hernandez’s Colorado house. Along with the marijuana-growing equipment, the agents also found Hernandez, who had 10 counterfeit credit cards on him, according to Monros. [Source: FlKeysNews]
Black Friday employee theft case leads to two arrests
A Youngstown, Ohio, woman faces a robbery charge after police said they found a gun in her purse during a shoplifting incident at Macy’s. According to a police report, a loss prevention associate told police he saw a woman, later identified as Jillian Russell, 34, pick out 12 pieces of store merchandise totaling $702.82, then go to a register where a store employee pretended to scan the items but did not. Russell was apprehended as she was leaving the store.
She was arrested for theft, but police then discovered she had an active concealed carry permit, prompting them to ask if she had her gun on her when police then located a gun in her purse, they said. Due to her having a deadly weapon in her possession while suspected of committing a theft, Russell was charged with robbery, according to the report. She also was charged with a concealed weapon offense for “failing to promptly notify a law enforcement officer that she was in possession of her concealed weapon.” Also Thursday, police arrested Shelby Storey, 22, of Youngstown on a theft charge. She is the Macy’s employee suspected of assisting Russell. [Source: The Vindicator]
The post Breaking News in the Industry: November 29, 2017 appeared first on LPM.