A Pasco Wal-Mart former Loss Prevention Officer is under suspicion for 45 individual cases of shoplifting. 

The Pasco Police Department filed this report yesterday showing how this former employee tricked the system.

Officer Josh Glass made an interesting shoplift arrest Friday evening. The current Loss Prevention Officer (LPO) at Walmart on Road 68 had been investigating a series of shoplifts occurring over the summer June-August. The allegation is that the same male came in at least 45 times during that period, and would typically go through the self-checkout lane, scanning one item but passing others over the reader area without scanning them, then paying at that register for only the single item scanned, and leaving.

That male, George S. Smalling, DOB 120678 of Pasco, had been an LPO at that same Walmart, tasked with making cases on shoplifters, until 2015, when he became a corrections officer with the DOC prison system (not either of the local county jails).

In mid-August, the current LPO confronted Smalling over an alleged shoplift at Walmart. The attached photo is from that day. Smalling was confronted wearing his DOC corrections officer uniform.

On that day, Smalling left without police contact, and the LPO began searching video going back to June and comparing the transactions visible on video against the transactions recorded by the register. The LPO called Pasco PD on Thursday and provided Officer Glass with copies of video and register transactions, along with narrative report written by the LPO, alleging 45 separate shoplifts. The purchases and thefts were never large, and the total alleged value is less than $400, according to the LPO’s report.

Officer Glass interviewed Smalling about the case on Friday. After that, Smalling was booked into Franklin County Jail on five counts of shoplift; five counts was selected on the recommendation of the city prosecutor as a way to start the case toward prosecution more quickly

It's definitely an interesting case, kudos to the new LPO for spotting this guy and his tactics.

 

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