Hundreds of dollars worth of stolen meat, groceries keep police coming back to Walmart
Myrtle Beach officers were called to the Seaboard Street Walmart Tuesday night for multiple shoplifting reports — one involved tricking a self scanner and others involved the alleged theft of various types of meats and other items, according to police reports.
Authorities were called about 7 p.m. while a 60-year-old man was still in the superstore with a cart full of various meats that he allegedly stuffed into bags he brought with him, police said.
Officers stood guard outside the store’s exits to wait for the suspect. Police stopped Arthur Mcneil and recovered $287.71 worth of items, including multiple packs of ribs, steaks, shrimp and chicken, according to the report.
When questioned, officers said the suspect told them several different fake names, the report says, and he was arrested in connection with shoplifting and resisting arrests, police said.
Authorities were called back to the store again about 8 p.m. in reference to an ongoing shoplifting incident, a police report says.
An officer noticed a woman matching a suspect description riding a bicycle northbound on Robert Grissom Parkway. Police tried to stop her, but she fled into the woods nearby, the report says.
Another officer arrived on scene with a police canine and tried to track the suspect but couldn’t find her, authorities said.
The suspect left behind her bike and two bags filled with allegedly stolen Walmart goods, police said. Authorities said the suspect stole a bag from a store shelf and put various meats inside. The total of items taken, but recovered, was about $236.36, according to the report.
Police visited the store again about 11 p.m. when a man tried leaving the store with a cart full of items. The man was confronted by store security when he tried to leave with about $889.36 worth of items inside boxes that had been taped shut, a report states.
He abandoned the items, ran from the store and hopped into a car outside, police said.
The first call came about 5:45 p.m. and involved a woman trying to dupe a store self checkout scanner by placing a bag of apples over it as she pretended to scan other items, police said.
Once 32-year-old Erica Woolsey tried to leave without paying for a total of $84.15 worth of items, she was taken to the security office where she awaited police, the report states. She had three kids in tow with her, and was issued a citation in connection with shoplifting, the report says.
This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 9:48 AM with the headline "Hundreds of dollars worth of stolen meat, groceries keep police coming back to Walmart."