A suspect in a string of burglaries in North Idaho was arrested Friday after a shoplifting incident turned violent at the Spokane Valley Wal-Mart.

 Susan Burke, 50, was out of custody on $5,000 bond awaiting trial in Kootenai County when a store security officer spotted her leaving the store with concealed merchandise Friday about 1:40 p.m.

Employees tried to stop Burke, but she struggled with them and threw her purse toward the door. Employees grabbed it e and found Burke's driver's license inside. They checked Burke's name in store records and discovered she'd been banned in 2010 from all stores for life after getting caught shoplifting twice.

Burke, who is scheduled for trial in Kootenai County in May for property crimes, was booked into jail on theft, burglary and robbery charges after police contacted her at her home at 303 E. Indiana Ave.

Police also contacted a 17-year-old boy who lives with Burke at the home and is identified as her boyfriend.

The boy is charged in juvenile court for an incident last July in which he allegedly failed to call for help after his friend fell in the Spokane River and drowned.

A man allowed to remain free pending the appeal of his sentence for robbing a store of a piece of tin foil is back in jail.

David Lee Hickam, 26, was found to have violated the terms of his release when he was identified recently as a suspect in a Dec. 26 theft.

Hickam also was cited or diving with a suspended license Feb. 17. Prosecutors cited that incident as well as the alleged theft of a laptop computer from Huppins, 419 W. Main Ave., as a reason to jail him on $150,000 bond.

Judge Annette Plese agreed, and police arrested Hickam Tuesday. He appeared in Spokane County Superior Court Wednesday.

Hickam is appealing a 47-month prison sentence for robbery that began when he stole a piece of tinfoil from Rite Aid, 5520 N. Division St., then pepper sprayed an employee.

 A jury convicted him last July, but he was allowed to stay out of prison after he posted a $35,000 appeal bond.
  

A report of attempted shoplifting at a Spokane Valley department store led to a felony drug arrest after police searched the suspect's car.

Employees at Kohl's, 16301 East Broadway Ave., called 911 Monday and said a woman was inside placing items by the door as a red Nissan Alitmia circled the parking lot. The woman went outside to talk to the female driver, and employees provided the Altima's license plate number to dispatchers, police said today.

Spokane Valley police Officer Jerad Kiehn passed the Niissan while responding to the store. He stopped the vehicle, and the driver, Whitney J. Longmeier, 26, denied being at Kohl's and allowed Kiehn to search her car, police say.

Kiehn found  a small metal container in Longmeier's purse that contained a plastic baggie with methamphetamine inside, according to police.

Longmeier was arrested on a felony drug charge as well as a charge of third-degree driving while license suspended.

Her passenger, 22-year-old Laurel E. Broxton, 22, was booked into jail on a warrant for a felony drug charge from last year.

A 19-time felon banned from Best Buy allegedly returned to the store 13 times in seven months, leading to a slew of felony burglary charges.

Police arrested William Steven Neis, 49, at his apartment at 1119 W. 11th Street on Jan. 25.

Officers had responded to north Spokane Best Buy Jan. 13 after employees said a shoplifter “has been harassing them and blatantly stealing things from them in full view for months,” according to the Spokane Police Department.

Best Buy policy prohibits employees from physically contacting theft suspects. Police believe Neis knew of this policy and continued to shoplift because of it.

Neis is believed to have stolen more than $5,000 in items from the store on 13 occasions between May and December last year., police say.

Neis was permanently banned from he store in July 2010. Spokane County prosecutors charged him with 13 counts second-degree burglary last week unlawfully entering the store.

Officers Dusty Howe and Stephanie Kennedy “spent a full week locating Neis” and went to Best Buy on their day off to continue the investigation, police say.

Neis remains in jail on $19,500, as well as $3,500 bond for misdemeanor assault and theft charges.

Spokane police are asking for help identifying a man accused of holding a knife to a Safeway employee's throat.

The employee approached the man about stealing items from the store at 2507 W. Wellesley Ave. when he was attacked Jan. 4 about 4:30 p.m., police said today.

The thief threatened to slit the employee's throat and fled on a bicycle with a pocket knife in his hand, police say

The victim described the man as in his late 30s and wearing a dark beanie, button-up flannel shirt and grayish tan Carhartt jacket.

Police released a surveillance photo of the man today.

Anyone with information on his identity is asked to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.

A Spokane man caught shoplifting from Costco on New Year's Eve upped the judicial ante by pointing a gun at a store employee, according to police.

Todd E. Miller, 39, is jailed on $30,000 bond after he was arrested Saturday at the store at 7619 N. Division St. Store employee Troy Humphrey said he contacted Miller about 6 p.m. after he spotted him stealing merchandise, according to court documents.

Humphrey tried to escort Miller to the back of the store, but Miller pointed a gun at him and fled, police say.

Police contacted Miller in a parking lot near the store. Officer Shawn Pegram says Miller showed him where he'd discarded the stolen merchandise. Pegram found a gun on the front passenger seat of the car in which he was sitting, according to court documents.

Miller appeared before Superior Court Judge Annette Plese Tuesday on a first-degree robbery charge.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Police in Wisconsin's capital city barely had to try to catch a pair of unlucky suspected thieves.

SEATTLE (AP) — The brother of a Longview, Wash., security guard who was attacked by a shoplifter with a hatchet says doctors weren't able to reattach his ear.

Police say a man who stole a pair of shoes at knifepoint from the Northtown Mall on Wednesday had asked the store employee for help with his out-of-gas car just before the robbery.

 The employee helped the man pushed his Red Dodge Ram pickup into a parking spot, only to be threatened 30 minutes later after confronting him for stealing a pair of shoes from Champs Sports, police say.

Police identified Jason M. Giles, 33, (pictured) as a suspect on Thursday after he was arrested in a similar robbery at Costco, 7619 N. Division St.

A Costco employee confronted Giles about 4:45 p.m. after observing him hide merchandise in his coat and try to leave the store. Giles punched the employee and bit another employee before pulling a knife and trying to stab another, according to court documents prepared by police.

Giles was arrested on charges of first-degree robbery, first-degree assault and possession of methamphetamine. Detectives met with him at the jail and booked him on an additional robbery charge for the Champs Sports incident.

Giles appeared in Spokane County Superior Court via video from the jail, where he remains on $50,000 bond and a probation hold. He has a previous conviction for second-degree assault for a shooting in 2009.

Police are looking for a man who pulled a knife on a shoe store employee Tuesday night at the Northtown Mall.

The manager at Champs Sports told officers the man tried on a pair of shoes, then left without paying and threatened the manager with a knife when confronted, according to the Spokane Police Department. No one was injured.

The man ran through the mall and exited on the east side, then continued running east.

A K-9 track was unsuccessful. The robber is described as a white man, 20 to 30 years old, 6-feet tall and 180 pounds. He wore a blue coat over a dark hoodie and a stocking cap.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.
  

A beer theft at a north Spokane grocery store led to a felony robbery arrest for a 19-year-old man accused of fighting with a store clerk.

Cole Matthew Kendall and a friend were trying to steal beer from Safeway at 902 W. Francis Ave. when Kendall pushed a clerk as they fled, Spokane police say.

A police dog helped track the thieves, and witnesses identified Kendall as the man who stole beer and pushed the clerk.

He was released from jail on his own recognizance after appearing in Superior Court Wednesday on a first-degree robbery charge. The name of the second suspect was not included in documents details the case against Kendall.

Theft-turned-robbery cases have become a hot topic in Spokane County. A judge gave an exceptionally light sentence to a college student arrested on robbery charges after bumping into a clerk while shoplifting.

A jury also recently convicted a drug addict of robbery for using force while stealing a single sheet of tinfoil.

Here's a news release from Spokane Valley police spokesman Sgt. Dave Reagan titled, “Stolen “Smart Food” No Help to Thief.”

A 24-year-old Spokane man was arrested Tuesday evening after he attempted to steal $329 worth of Blu Ray DVD’s and an egg roll, a burrito and an item labeled “smart food.”

Officer Lamont Peterson was called to the East Sprague Avenue and North Sullivan Road Fred Meyer store about 7 p.m. after a security officer stopped Mordekye A. Layman as he attempted to leave the store with the items hidden in a canvas bag.

Peterson arrested Layman for third-degree theft and returned the property to the store.

SEATTLE (AP) — The crime appeared petty on the surveillance video: a mother-daughter team of heroin-addict shoplifters nonchalantly wheeling a cart of boosted items through the open sliding doors of a grocery store.

A Spokane woman banned from all Walmarts was arrested for felony burglary Sunday after returning to the Spokane Valley store.

A man arrested in a police pursuit that damaged two patrol cars late Monday has been charged with robbery for an alleged incident at the Northtown Mall in November.

Kenneth S. Crowston, 47, (pictured in 2003) is charged with second-degree robbery after a Sears security guard said Crowston hit him when confronted about shoplifting a pair of boots on Nov. 24.

Crowston was arrested the day of the incident but was not charged and was out of jail late Monday when police spotted him in his car dressed in black in a neighborhood plagued by burglaries.

Crowston sped away from Officer Jay Kernkamp after Kernkamp approached him about 11 p.m. in the area of West Central Avenue and North Belt Street, then sideswiped Kernkamp's patrol car and rammed Officer Paul Bode's patrol car head on during a pursuit.

Crowston was pulled from his vehicle and arrested after a struggle.

Neither officer was injured in the incident.

Crowston, who has a lengthy criminal record, was booked into jail on two counts of second-degree assault, attempting to elude a police officer, driving with a suspended license and resisting arrest, where he remains on $100,000 bond.
  

Kristin Bell had what she calls a moment of weakness that has turned into a 2  1/2-year legal nightmare and forced her to give up a dream of ever working as a grade-school teacher.

Bell, 24, admits that she foolishly stole $163 worth of items in 2008 from a craft store in Cheney. But it’s what happened on her way to her car that forever changed her life and sparked a legal debate that continues today.

“It’s just been such an ordeal,” said Bell, who is about three classes short of her degree, unemployed and recently had a son. “I obviously admitted I shoplifted and paid the fines for it. I don’t believe being charged with robbery was right at all. It’s been ridiculous.”

The case, and others like it, has raised questions within Spokane’s legal community as to whether justice is being served when prosecutors turn what appears to be a shoplifting case into a felony at the same time they complain to county commissioners and taxpayers that they are understaffed and overworked.

Read the rest of Thomas Clouse's story here.

Police say a Spokane Valley man suspected of robbery made it easy for them on Sunday: He let employees copy his driver’s license number before leaving the store.

But Delano Edward Jennings, 47, was ordered released from jail Monday because prosecutors didn’t have the necessary documents from police.

Jennings was arrested after he left Home Depot, 5617 E. Sprague Ave., with a stolen electric fan and carpet shampoo, then punched a security guard in the face when confronted in the parking lot, according to police.

The guard had watched Jennings hand his driver’s license to another employee while exchanging items prior to the theft, police said.

Jennings fled eastbound with the stolen items, but the store still had a copy of his driver’s license number.

Spokane Valley police Officer Mike McNees remembered a domestic violence incident that was investigated at Jennings’ apartment a day earlier and alerted other officers, who located him at the home about 9 p.m.

Jennings was arrested on the robbery charge but left jail because prosecutors didn’t have a probable cause affidavit from police. Superior Court Judge Michael Price warned him that charges likely will eventually be filed.

Jennings is a felon with previous convictions for bail jumping, theft and delivery of cocaine.

A theft suspect accidentally caught by police after fleeing a downtown Spokane clothing store remains in jail on $25,000 bond and a probation hold.

Gavin D. Wolf, 24, (pictured in 2008) appeared in Superior Court Tuesday on a second-degree robbery charge.

A passing patrol car struck Wolf Monday as he darted across Main Avenue shortly before 5 p.m. while being chased by a Nordstrom security officer, said Major Crimes Sgt. Mark Griffiths.

The suspect suffered a leg injury and was taken to a local hospital. “It was completely coincidental. (Nordstrom) hadn't called us yet,” Griffiths said.

Although the robber never displayed a weapon, he used force when confronted by a security guard, police said, fleeing with a bag of clothing and other items found near Wolf at the accident scene. The police car was driven by Officer Joe Denton.

Griffiths said Denton and the Nordstrom security officer reported that Wolf was outside the crosswalk.

Wolf already was wanted on a Department of Corrections warrant for escape from community custody.

He was sentenced in April to five days in jail for misdemeanor theft and was sentenced in September 2009 to nine days in jail after pleading guilty to felony third-degree retail theft with extenuating circumstances. He also has previous convictions for drugs and drunken driving.

A would-be shoplifting suspect faces a second-degree robbery charge after store employees said he assaulted them. 

Daniel F. Barcellos, Jr., 40, ran from the Big R store, 8307 East Trent Ave., on Saturday with a $200 leather jacket before trying to punch and shove three employees who chased him, according to the Spokane Valley Police Department.

Barcellos, who employees says is suspected of previous thefts, had been spotted trying to stuff a leather boot inside the jacket. He assaulted employees who tried blocking his path before he was finally tackled near Trent and Vista, police said.

Police found wire cutters on Barcellos, and the leather jacket he was wearing had Big R tags, but the security device had been removed.

Barcellos’s criminal history includes convictions for reckless and negligent driving, driving on a suspended license, theft, malicious mischief, domestic violence assault, violation of court orders and probation violations, according to Crime Stoppers.

He appeared today in Superior Court, where his bond was set at $25,000.