Crime & Safety

Police: Men Tried to Steal $13,000 from Wal-Mart

Two men was captured and arrested after police say they were spotted by an off-duty officer.

The Cleveland Heights Police Department supplied the following information. Where arrests or charges are mentioned, it does not indicate a conviction.

Two men were arrested at Wal-Mart after police say they filled up a backpack and shopping cart with items and tried to steal them.

Police say that an off-duty officer spotted a car just before 3 a.m. Dec. 28* that matched the description of a vehicle store employees had told him had been involved in thefts before. Two men from the car entered the store and the officer monitored them.

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According to the report, the officer saw one man wearing a black backpack that he did not come into the store with. He tried to talk to the man and the man fled. The officer chased the man into the garden center and arrested him. During the chase, the man tossed two cell phones, police say.

The second man was arrested outside the store after police say he left behind a shopping cart full of merchandise that police assert he intended to steal, including a vacuum cleaner, 16 cell phones, a cookware set, a DVD player and a toy puppy.

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Police saw him on surveillance video ducking behind the electronics check-out counter and taking items.

Both men were charged with grand theft.

Editor's Note: The date and time of this offense have been added.

For questions about this blotter, email Nikki.Ferrell@patch.com.


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