‘Really fun,’ brags Walmart shoplifter who stole more than $1,000 in goods – her explanation left cops stunned
A SHOPLIFTER who was detained by cops in a Walmart parking lot left officers baffled after admitting to playing a theft game.
At 6:26 pm on March 25, officers from Flagler County Sheriff's Office, Florida, were called to a Walmart store after receiving a call from a citizen about a suspected shoplifter.
The citizen reported that a female "had passed all points of sale and refused to show her receipt for a cart full of items," the Sheriff's Office stated.
Along with a detailed description of the woman given by the store's loss prevention officer, cops detained the suspect identified as Amber McCann, 30, of Sanford, Florida.
In a video shared by the Sheriff's Office, the McCann openly admits to stealing "a lot" of items from the store as part of a shoplifting game called 21.
"It's a game that we play it's called 21," she told officers.
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"You basically go and steal all the s*** you can steal and you get out without getting caught.
"Well I did it one other time than this time but I got caught this time so now I gotta...give all my merchandise back to Walmart."
"It's really fun," McCann added with a grin.
Cops informed the shoplifter that "its not a game its theft" and added sarcastically, "Going to jail is fun? okay."
Officers told the woman that depending on the value of the items she stole, she could be facing jail time.
"Well, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go to jail because it's a lot of s***" McCann bragged while in cuffs in the rear of the police car.
Body cam footage from the officers' search of McCann's vehicle shows masses of items thrown on the rear seats of the car with some of it falling out when one officer opened the door.
Before being arrested, she claimed that she had put the items in a random vehicle as she knew the cops were coming.
However, she then changed her story after being detained and said the vehicle was a rental belonging to her boyfriend.
The store's loss prevention officer later valued the stolen merchandise at just over $1,030, according to the Sheriff's Office.
But that was not all that was found in the rental car.
RISE OF SHOPLIFTING
AS shoplifters increase the value of the items they take and often combine it with brazen acts of violence, leaders from both political parties and law enforcement are demanding tougher punishments.
According to Adam Gelb, the CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), the overall data does not support a huge shift in shoplifting practices however, the way it is being carried out is of concern.
"The brazen ransacking incidents, coordinated on social media and captured on video, clearly suggest that there is a sense of lawlessness afoot," Gelb said in a 2023 analysis of shoplifting.
According to the CCJ in its analysis of 24 cities, shoplifting increased by 16% in the first half of 2023 compared to the same time in 2019.
However, when New York was excluded from the data, the number of incidents in the cities included in the study was 7% lower.
Despite this, the average value of goods stolen increased from around $75 in 2019 to $100 in 2021 and there was a 9% increase between these years of shoplifting incidents that involved an assault or other crime.
"We typically think of serious violent crimes, like mass shootings, as the offenses that spark fear and drive the politics of crime," Gelb said.
"But these mass shoplifting events have the potential to derail two decades of criminal justice reform."
In a conversation with On Point, David Johnston, Vice President of Asset Protection and Retail Operations for the National Retail Federation, says he's seeing more brazen theft across the stores he represents.
"I can tell you in my 35, 36 years of doing this, it's unprecedented and unmatched," he said.
"First and foremost, we're seeing the frequency of theft, the openness and the brazenness of the criminals, the quantities and the type of merchandise that are stolen."
While removing the stolen items, officers could smell marijuana and located a burnt marijuana cigarette in the center console of the vehicle.
In addition to this, they found "baggies containing marijuana, along with a digital scale, hashish, a glass pipe with burnt residue, and empty baggies were found in the trunk of the vehicle," the Sheriff's Office said.
"They also located a locked bag which contained two plastic baggies containing a clear, crystal-like substance, which tested positive for methamphetamine, and another baggie containing two yellow tablets identified as alprazolam, which is a Schedule IV Controlled Substance.
"Inside a locked safe, deputies located various 1-ounce silver bars and rounds, copper bars, and a 1-gram platinum bar."
"In total, deputies recovered four bags containing methamphetamine, which weighed a combined 62 grams," the statement added.
McCann was arrested for shoplifting and charged with grand theft as the merchandise she admitted to stealing was between $500 and $5,000.
She was also charged with possession of marijuana, possession of hashish, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of alprazolam, and the trafficking of methamphetamine.
McCann is currently being held at the Sheriff Perry Hall Detention facility on a bond of $34,000.
“If she really thought she was playing a shoplifting game, she lost to our deputies and observant citizens," Sheriff Rick Staly said.
"Yet again, a ‘see something, say something’ caller directly contributed to the arrest of a thief and drug trafficker.
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"Another out-of-town resident ‘just stealing material things’ from a big box store learned the hard way we enforce the laws in Flagler County and it’s illegal to steal.
"She may have skipped the checkout lane at Walmart, but she went through the express check-in at the Green Roof Inn with a free set of designer bracelets—aka handcuffs."