Police Report: With Officer's Timely Arrival, Shoplifter Now a 20-Time Loser

A Milwaukee man was arrested Wednesday for retail theft for his 20th time and will once again face state charges instead of the usual municipal citation given to run-of-the-mill shoplifters.

According to police reports:

At 1:26 a.m. Wednesday, a 40-year-old Milwaukee man was chased down and arrested for theft after he left , 2275 N. Mayfair Rd., without paying for $84.28 worth of merchandise, including laundry detergent, a water filter and sundry health and beauty products.

As it happened, a patrol officer was so close by he saw the suspect’s car leaving the parking lot and a Walgreen's employee standing in front of the store waving wildly. He pulled in, quickly caught the story and just as quickly caught up with the car and pulled it over.

The suspect was arrested and found to have a state warrant for violation of probation, retail theft. This case will again to be forwarded to the district attorney for habitual criminality because of his 19 prior convictions for retail theft.

Thursday

At 8 p.m., a 15-year-old boy was arrested for battery at the , 1214 Kavanaugh Place, after he attacked another boy without provocation and choked him.

At 9:50 a.m., the driver of van delivering Pepperidge Farms products reported that while he was at Pick ‘n Save, 1717 N. Mayfair Rd., someone broke into the van by punching in a lock and stole six cases of snacks and four cases of coupon books.

A student at reported that on Monday her school-issued iPad, worth $400, was taken from the library when she left it unattended for about a minute.

Wednesday

At 5:43 p.m., a 15-year-old Milwaukee girl was arrested for theft and trespassing at at Mayfair Mall after she was caught trying to leave the store with $250 worth of clothing concealed in a purse. The girl was found to be violating a five-year ban from Mayfair because of an arrest there for possession of stolen property in August 2010. She was cited for trespassing and a new five-year ban was imposed, to Nov. 2, 2016.

Police went to the Dry Goods store at Mayfair Mall to investigate a grab-and-run theft in which two women took eight to 10 pairs of “Miss Me” designer jeans, worth $99 to $119 each, and bolted from the store and the mall. A witness got the license number of the car they left in, and it proved to belong to a known Milwaukee woman who was under a ban order from the mall. Police are seeking the suspect.

Tuesday

At 8:07 p.m., after investigating a report by a woman living in the 1900 block of North 116th St., police forwarded battery charges to the Juvenile Justice Center against her 15-year-old son. He had been charged Oct. 25 with battery against her for similar reasons, and this time, she said, he had beaten and choked her for 15 minutes – because she had taken away his video game controllers.

Monday

At 5:45 p.m., a resident of the 11900 block of West North Avenue reported that some time during the day someone had broken into his apartment and stolen cash. The molding around his door latch had been pried away and then the lock had been slipped with a knife or other thin tool. The man said he did not use his deadbolt. He was missing a small amount of cash from a money clip and two cups full of change.

A student at reported that on the previous Thursday, someone had stolen an iPod that he had borrowed from a teacher after he forgot it in a classroom.

The manager of , 2323 N. Mayfair Rd., reported that between last Friday and Monday morning, the bank had inadvertently cashed fraudulent paychecks from the same company for nine different people, totaling $5,182.10 in losses. None of the suspects was actually employed at the business. A tenth suspect fled from the bank after he tried to cash a similar check Monday after the bank had discovered the error. Police believe that the nine suspects presented their real identification, and they have surveillance photos them.

A 9:45 a.m., the owner of , 7024 W. North Ave., reported that overnight someone had pried the wooden siding off his building that covered a jewelry drop box built into the wall. The top had then been pried off the box. He said he didn’t know whether any of his clients had left anything in the box.

Sunday

At 1:56 p.m., an employee of the kiosk shop in Mayfair Mall reported that two men had just stolen an iPad 2 tablet ($1,000), a Motorola tablet ($1,000) and an iPhone 4 ($650). He said that all the items had security cords attached, and while he was assisting other customers, multiple alarms went off and he saw the men running off with the merchandise.