Friday, December 25, 2015
Staff report
NILES
City police arrested two Cleveland-area women at Eastwood Mall after alert bystanders called 911 after seeing them purportedly shoplifting $700 in jackets from Dick’s Sporting Goods store.
In all, Angelic N. Brown, 40, of Cleveland, Angela N. Falkner, 41, of Bedford Heights, a Cleveland suburb, and an unidentified third woman are accused of stealing nearly $10,000 in merchandise from multiple stores in the mall complex.
Some of the thefts may have occurred at Southern Park Mall in Boardman, police said.
Police received a 911 call at 9:35 p.m. Tuesday from patrons who said they saw three women stealing jackets from the store. The women got into a black Nissan Pathfinder, and the callers followed them while remaining on the phone with a dispatcher, police said.
Noticing the bystanders, the suspects stopped the SUV, got out in the mall parking lot and ran, discarding the jackets as they fled inside the mall, police said.
The bystanders went inside the mall with police and identified Brown and Falkner. Police apprehended the women and placed Brown in the Trumbull County Jail, charged with felony theft. Falkner was released on a summons to appear in court later on a misdemeanor-theft charge.
Officers found nearly $10,000 in stolen goods inside the SUV, which was packed from the floor to the roof with bags of stolen items. It took two officers several hours to catalog and tag everything, police said.
The SUV, which belonged to Brown, also contained multiple “booster bags” commonly used to thwart store-security measures, police said.
Brown was arraigned Wednesday in Niles Municipal Court on felony charges of receiving stolen property, possession of criminal tools and intimidation of a witness. She was released from jail after posting bond.