Here’s a story from nearby West Allis, WI that isn’t getting nearly enough attention in the news. I know it’s a little lengthy, but well worth the read.

Charlie,

My local Home Depot store had arrested my son for shoplifting. They claim he stole a $9.90 skill saw blade. Let me give you a little more background. My son is 29 yrs old, he had just purchased my house for his family, and I told him to go to Home Depot and buy whatever he needed to make changes to the house and charge it to my Home Depot credit account. We figured two to five thousand dollars should be enough to get it ready for his wife and kids. This was his third major purchase. This purchase totaled $868.00.

While shopping at this Home Depot store, he was using a large push cart, not the kind with the basket but the kind with the flat bottom, because he was planning on buying kitchen cabinets and related items. When he arrived at the checkout line a clerk came over, and said he could help him at a different register. My son assumed it was because he had such a large order, it would speed up other shoppers checking out. As the clerk began scanning the items he notices a crack in one of the crown moldings and suggested my son get a different crown molding, which my son did. When my son got back the clerk scanned the molding and gave my son the receipt to sign.

As my son was leaving the store, he went through the detectors and the alarm sounded. My son stopped, asked the clerk if everything was checked out. To which the clerk nodded yes and motioned for my son to leave. My son left the store, unloaded the items into a truck, and was returning the push cart to the cart corral when he was grabbed by the shoulder and told he was being arrested for shoplifting. He replied that there must be some mistake, and was told that since he didn’t know how to pay for the saw blade he sure knew how to unload it. My son still didn’t understand but figured he go back in and get this straightened out. The West Allis police were called and he was arrested for shoplifting a $9.90 saw blade after spending $868.00 on other items. Remember this was all going on my charge account and he wasn’t paying for anything, so why would he care about another ten bucks. He would have spent another hundred if he could have fit it on the cart.

What’s the big deal about a shoplifting ticket? You pay the $262.00 and forget about. Right? Not in this case. You see my son was medically discharged from the Air Force. He qualifies as a service-disabled veteran and as such also qualifies for certain small business government set-asides. He has started a small business, as a distributor and prime contractor, and had started servicing his first government contract as of 1 July 05. He has at least two dozen current proposals for other contracts in the works. Future contracts will require a Top Secret clearance, which will be impossible to get if his record contains a shoplifting arrest. He is currently negotiating the installation of a video surveillance system for a military installation. What if they check his record and find a shoplifting arrest?

So we decide we have to hire a lawyer to initially try to clear this up. We’re a thousand buck into it and we really can’t afford more, but it will cost more. If we decide to sue for false arrest our legal bill will be over $20,000(A rough figure given by an attorney). Those hours add up at over $300/Hr. This will not be a high judgement case so it’s not very attractive to most attorneys. Any suggestions?

John Gaidosh

This is just NOT right. Home Depot is out of their minds for arresting this man. If they used their brains, they’d see that this man has NO MOTIVE for stealing a $10 saw. What do you think?? (Thanks to Dad for telling me about this story and to Neill for sending me the actual link).

Update: ‘TMJ News reports that this guy has suffered again - he cut off three fingers while doing the remodeling.