Dale Peterson, the Alabama Republican running for Agricultural Commissioner, has railed against “thugs and criminals.” Yet, Peterson is facing a second shoplifting charge in just five months. The latest charge however is over a handful of nuts that he ate at a Sam’s Club. Indeed, it is hard to see why either of these charges were brought rather than requiring a simple payment at the counter.
Dale Peterson has insisted that “I can tell you right now on a stack of Bibles, Dale Peterson is not a thief.” Yet, Sam’s Club says that he was spotted shopping for roughly an hour and a half during which time he opened a jar of cashews and ate a handful. They watched him apparently for over an hour and then spotted him putting the jar back. They waited for him to pay for his other groceries and grabbed him outside of the store with the 22 cents of unpaid cashews in his stomach.
His defense was classic: “Maybe I’m getting too damn old, getting CRS disease or whatever . . . can’t remember shit.”
Notably, he spent hundreds of dollars at the store that day in paying his prior bill and buying more items. I am a bit surprised that, given his large purchase, this could not be resolved without resource to a criminal charge and trial. Peterson says that he simply forgot that he opened the jar. He said that he spent an hour and a half grazing off free food “eating little chicken strips that they give away or some yogurt. Sometimes you get through, you’re full, you’ve had lunch there.”
After his feasting at Sam’s, he paid and left only to have a security guard stop him and say that he “didn’t pay for those peanuts that are in your stomach.”
Was Peterson wrong? Obviously. But what is the need for a criminal charge here?
I was particularly suspicious of Peterson after reading that this was his second such arrest. However, the first arrest also seemed a bit minor. That incident occurred months earlier at a Walmart when Peterson pushed his cart full of beer and toilet paper past the registers. He said that he was just parking the cart near a bathroom, but he was charged with shoplifting.
Peterson is now charged third-degree theft of property on the second incident — not a good development for a law-and-order guy who would brandish a shotgun in his advertisements.
Source: NY Daily News
Shoplifting is still stealing. If every person guilty of shoplifting were just let go, without being charged, we’d have a world full of thieves! Anyone who steals something, regardless of what it costs, should be punished. Period. But, if a kid, say 5 or 6, steals something, it’s a little different. A child that age doesn’t know any better. But, If they’re say, 15 or 16, they should know better.
I was barred from WM for having an open bag of chips in the store. No, I wasn’t a customer. I worked for a vendor, a chips company, shelving their products. An ass. mgr. asked me if I had a receipt for the open bag. Of course I didn’t; the bag was open when I took it out of the shipping carton. It was on its way to the compactor, which is where all the unsealed and out-of-date product went. The contents were dumped into the compactor and the bags went into the credits bin.
Why anyone shops at this anti-union, Chinese military helping, American jobs destroying awful beast of a company, I have no idea.
pete, You’re on fire!
They were correct to arrest him, but he also needs a mental health evaluation.
‘The Steal’ Traces The History And Psychology Of Shoplifters
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/07/14/steal-history-shoplifters
Lottakatz
We had stores around where I worked that would sometimes cut them loose, trespass them, and depending on circumstances they would call my department. Knowing that if I was called over there for a shoplifter and the evidence was there for a clean case I nearly always either cited the person or took them to jail. If the merchant had enought of the person and wanted them charged that was enough for me, because they wouldn’t have called us otherwise.
One store was a bit odd. Probably one out of every five times I went there the suspect turned out to be an employee. And it seemed despite the fact that one of their coworkers got nicked for theft, they soon forgot about it and ripped the store off their employer anyway.
Pete999
🙂
There’s no can of cashews (from the link it was cashews) that costs $1.50 Darren. A can of whole cashews go from 4+ to 6+$’s at the store I shop at- Fancy mixed nuts are 7+$ depending on the brand. Sam’s may have lower prices but he still made unsalable a product that cost 3+$ even if he ate the less expensive ones. It’s a total quibble I know but I went to the the store like, 11 hours ago and picked up a can of fancy mixed nuts as a treat for the better half and was surprised at the price- it’s gone up again.
I’d be inclined to just make him pay for the nuts unless he got hostile over it, then I’d call the cops. The possibility of early onset Alzheimers may be something he should consider if this kind of behavior keeps up.