Police Report: What Not to Do on Your First Day at Work

Jobs are hard to come by these days, but they are easy to lose.

At 4:01 p.m. Monday, police were called to investigate the theft of a bamboo “long board” – a long skateboard – from the Zumiez shop at Mayfair Mall.

The manager of Zumiez was outside the shop when he saw a young man leaving the store and then taking the skateboard out from under the apron he was wearing. He quickly checked with his staff and learned that no long boards had been sold.

He followed the suspect through the mall to the food court and into the bathroom area and asked him whether he had a receipt fot the board. The man said he did but failed to produce one, and the manager asked him to return to the store to prove he had bought the board.

He did accompany the manager part-way, but suddenly ran down an escalator and fled from the mall, with the board.

Based on his description – and upon the distinctive apron he was wearing – he was soon identified as a man working his first day in the food court as an employee of Sbarro pizza – and no doubt his last.

Managers of Sbarro said they had contacted the new employee at home, and he had admitted to doing something stupid, but did not say what. Sbarro management promised to call police if the man showed up for work again.

At 6:25 p.m. Monday, a 17-year-old Milwaukee boy was arrested for theft at Kmart, 3201 N. Mayfair Rd., where he had worked for five days before being caught trying to steal two music CDs, which were found in his backpack.

He told managers there that he had taken the CDs for his younger brother and hoped the theft wouldn't be noticed, even though he knew that the store policy called for searching all employees' bags before they leave the store.

In other incidents:

Thursday

At 4:31 p.m., a 27-year-old Hartland man was arrested for theft at , 6950 W. State St., after he was recognized and observed by a security employee as the same man who had been seen on video stealing three bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey on Wednesday. He was watched on camera as he went directly to the liquor department, put three bottles more bottles of Jack Daniels in his shopping cart, then concealed them under his jacket as he headed for the front of the store. He walked past the registers and toward the exit, but this time he was stopped. The suspect tried to push past the security guard, who tried to restrain him, and the two ended up wrestling. When he was pushed into a wall, the suspect elbowed the officer in the mouth and ran, but the officer grabbed him and swung him to the floor, causing all three bottles of liquor to fall out of his jacket and smash. The officer put him in a headlock and he was finally restrained and escorted to the security office. When police arrived to arrest him, he initially gave a false name – because, to top it off, he had a felony arrest warrant under his real name.

At 3:49 p.m., a 22-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested for theft at , 3900 N. 124th St., after he ran out of the store without paying for merchandise he had been seen concealing in his clothing. Police caught him a short distance away.

Wednesday

At 4:44 p.m., a 44-year-old Wauwatosa man was arrested for attempted fraud by identity theft when he tried to use tax identification numbers for two organizations he did not represent to upgrade two cell phones at , 2711 N. Mayfair Rd. He was also found to have five traffic warrants from Menomonee Falls and a fraud warrant from Little Rock, Ark.

At 3:41 p.m., a 14-year-old Milwaukee boy was arrested for theft at in Mayfair Mall after he tried to conceal and leave the store with eight pairs of socks, five pairs of boxer shorts and four shirts, all together worth $394.49. He also had a backpack that contained shorts, a sweater, shirts and jeans all stolen earlier from Macy’s.

Tuesday

At 7:45 p.m., three suspects, one 22-year-old Milwaukee woman and two Milwaukee men, 30 and 38, were arrested on a variety of counts following a retail theft at , 4100 N. 124th St. The woman was seen stealing tools from the store and ran when she was asked to stop. She was seen getting into a car with several other people, and police pulled them over a short distance away on West Capitol Drive. The woman was arrested for two counts of theft, bail jumping and possession of drug paraphernalia – a syringe she admitted she used to shoot heroin. She admitted to several other thefts at the same Home Depot store and another in West Allis and told police that she steals expensive tool kits for her accomplice to sell in support of their heroin addictions. The 30-year-old man was also arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, and the 38-year-old was arrested for obstructing an officer after he repeatedly gave false names in an attempt to cover up a warrant for his arrest and the fact that he was on probation. He and the woman both have long histories of arrests on similar counts.

At 6:33 p.m., an employee at the , 2525 N. Mayfair Rd., called police after a man ran out of the store with a basket full of merchandise, got into a waiting car and fled. The clerk did not get a make, model or license number for the car.

At 3:23 p.m., a 19-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested for theft at Zumiez at Mayfair Mall after he tried to steal a sweatshirt. He had picked up two sweatshirts and asked a clerk where the fitting rooms were. Upon leaving a fitting room, he was carrying only one sweatshirt, and the clerk saw the sales tag of the other sticking out the neck of his clothing.

At 10:13 a.m., the owner of , 10909 Blue Mound Rd., reported that his business had been broken into overnight. He said employees had called him when they arrived in the morning and found the front door broken open. Police found that two other doors, one leading to the building’s parking structure and the other into its main hallway, had also been pried open. One station at the salon had been ransacked, and employees could find nothing missing except possibly a jar of change.

At 6:15 a.m., a resident of the 2200 block of Lefeber Ave. reported that he had found on his front lawn a computer, a monitor and an empty wallet. None of the property had as yet been reported stolen.

Monday

At 5:48 p.m., an employee of in Mayfair Mall called police to report that she was receiving numerous threatening phone calls from a woman whom she had earlier caught removing anti-theft sensors from clothing. The woman had been asked to leave the store but was not threatened with arrest or prosecution, yet she felt compelled to call over and over, threatening harm to the employee. She continued to call while police interviewed the clerk, and refused to stop calling even after police came on the line and told her to quit. Officers advised the clerk to call police immediately if the woman ever again enters the store.

At 3:39 p.m., a 58-year-old Milwaukee woman was arrested for theft, bail jumping and possession of crack cocaine after she fled from , 8616 W. North Ave., with stolen liquor. A store security officer saw her leaving the liquor section carrying a large bag and suspected she was up to no good. He quickly checked store video and saw that she had put at least one bottle of vodka in the bag. He went to the parking lot, where she was just getting into a car, and took hold of the bag to check it. But she pulled it away and told him there was nothing in it he needed to see. She got into the back seat and drove off with two men who were in the front seats. The security employee called police and got into his own car and followed the suspect until police pulled the car over on West Center Street. Officers found three bottles of Absolut vodka in the trunk and rocks of crack in the woman’s purse.