Shorewood Man Dances His Way Into Handcuffs at Tosa Target

Happy feet can get you into trouble.

At 2:42 p.m. Thursday, a 32-year-old Shorewood man was arrested for retail theft at , 3900 N. 124th St., after he was seen pocketing three Sony Playstation 3 game controllers and then left without paying for them.

A security guard monitoring store cameras noticed the man dancing in the aisles, he told police. He found that behavior “unusual” and decided to keep an eye on him.

The Shorewood man picked out the game controllers and carried them to another aisle, the guard said, where he appeared to be cutting the packages open with a razor blade.

He put the controllers in his pockets, wandered around for a while with a cart, putting some other items in it, then abandoned the cart at the front of the store and walked out.

As soon as it was clear to security staff that he was stealing the items, they called for to deal with him, in case he still had the razor blade.

Officers spotted the man a block away on West Capitol Drive and stopped him. He immediately threw his hands in the air and told them he didn’t have the razor blade on him. It was later found on a store shelf.

The suspect told officers his family business had closed in January, he was still out of work and struggling, and he had taken to stealing things and selling them to pay for rent and food.

He also admitted, though, that he is addicted to Oxycodone and that some ill-gotten cash also went to support that. He concluded by stating, for the record, that he is “a good guy just currently in a tight spot.”

The police report noted, also for the record, that he has two prior retail theft convictions.