December 2, 1990: J.C. Penney’s, Ross Park Mall – “Athletic apparel stolen & chase onto McKnight Road".

I first observed the subject as he was standing in the Athletic Apparel Dept. As I was walking past the cards, I saw him lookup several times from behind the rack of sweats he was standing behind. I continued on past him into Furniture, noted the time on my watch, then entered the Receiving area and went up into the booth overlooking Athletic Apparel. I continued to observe the subject from the booth. I could see a gathered up black piece of clothing in his right hand,and the items on the rack directly in front of him were black colored clothing. He kept looking around then placed the item into a grey bag and left the department, turning left. I exited the booth and came out the Receiving doors immediately spotting the subject heading towards the exit doors between Furniture and Lamps. It was at this time I first radioed for backup. I followed the subject outside, identified myself as store security and attempted to stop the subject. He immediately started to run through the parking lot whereby I gave chase. As we passed the Kaufmann’s entrance he dropped the bag that he had concealed the merchandise in. I stopped to pick up the bag, then continued after the subject. I also continued to radio for backup, while describing our location. At this time my partner arrived on the scene from the left and almost caught up with the subject before he climbed over a fence separating the mall property from the woods.

My partner and another associate pursued the subject while I came back and handed the bag to one of our other security associates. I then started running down Mall Drive when a member of Kaufmanns Security picked me up in his car and took me to the bottom of the hill. We drove around all the office buildings searching for the subject. I then got out of the car and walked up the hill through the woods to Woodland Road above, in an attempt to get in front of the subject.

After 5 – 10 minutes, my partner radioed that he spotted the subject (“I’ve got an actor”) and that he had crossed Woodland Road several blocks back from my location. A Ross Township police cruiser then arrived and I informed them the subject had been sighted, and jumping in the back of the car, I caught  a ride with them. After a 15 to 20 minute search through the neighborhood, we were unable to find the subject, until he was again spotted heading towards McKnight Road by the other security associate. Via the radio, this associate kept me informed of the subject’s location while I relayed the information to the officers. We came down Seibert Road and turned west onto McKnight Road when the other security associate radioed that the subject was running down the middle of McKnight Road. Within seconds, we spotted the subject with a PA State Constable chasing him on foot. The Ross Township officer used the police cruiser to cut off the subject, which also blocked the west bound lanes of McKnight Road. The subject stopped running and was immediately placed under arrest and handcuffed by the Ross Twp officers in the center of McKnight Road in front of Chi Chi’s restaurant. The subject was returned to the Loss Prevention office after a brief search for his friend’s car, a blue Ford. While in the police cruiser, the subject kept saying that some guy was going to kill him if he didn’t get him a pair of sweat pants. He also seemed more concerned about the damage to his black leather jacket, than his part in this whole incident. I told the subject that he picked the wrong day to come into the store, since we had a full staff working that day. Proper paperwork was filled out, the subject was photographed by Mall Security and later released.