Goodwill Industries Of The Columbia-Willamette Banned and arrested me. Portland, Oregon

Since my full time job ended four years ago, I decided to pursue my love of junk collecting by shopping for resalable items to sell through the Internet.  In these four years I have made considerable progress in building a small on line business that helps to support myself.  Unfortunately, I have accumulated more then I have sold, but thats a whole other story and probably very common amongst Goodwill addicts.   Goodwill has been a major part of my life the last four years - almost too much at times as it seems I have no life outside of Goodwill.  I visit their stores every day and make purchases but mainly shop the Outlet store in Milwaukee.  In the last four years I have spent over $47,000 in their stores. Donated countless loads of items of which I have seen many sell in their stores.   I am known as the guy with the dog throughout their stores as I carry a small Pug with me at all times.  

On Thursday July 30 after spending eight hours at the outlet, without air conditioning and having done a couple of food deliveries, I was tired and was finishing up my daily routine which included stopping at the Super Store on Sixth Ave.  I did my regular routine of scanning the aisles looking for goods to research on my data phone and purchase.   I found several items and placed then in the upper part of the cart, next to the dog.  As I walked through the store I looked over the items and decided I would not get them.  I try to put items I reject back where I find them as I hate when people just dump them anywhere in the store.  I also usually scan the aisles several times as its easy to miss things.   I have found my best stuff on the second and third passes.  On this night I found something on my second pass, researched it and decided to purchase it.  I checked out, paid and left the store.   As I was going through the parking lot, somebody called to stop me and showed a security badge and said he would like to see the items I had under the dog bed.  I was surprised and realized at that moment that I had not put the rejected items back on the shelf.  They had wedged between the bed and the blue plastic flap in the cart.  He asked me to come back into the store to talk about it and I complied.  I was pretty embarrassed as I know everybody in the store.  The loss control guy  was very professional and polite and escorted me and my dog back to a room at the back of the store.  He then basically arrested me and interviewed me as to what happened.  I told him and he did not believe me.  He took the two items which consisted of a broken Kodak digital camera with a missing battery cover for $9.99, a computer power supply that had a computer network card rubber banded to it with one price tag of $19.99 on the power supply.  He separated the two and sent the unmarked card out with a store employee to get a price on it.   It came back with a price of $19.99.  We talked about the pricing issue and then he then asked me to sign some forms which I told him I was uncomfortable with as they were inaccurate due to the pricing issue and I would be admitting willful theft by signing.  I could not sign them.   The police arrived a bit later and arrested me.  While searching my pockets for knifes, etc., the officer found a satellite radio remote control I had purchased earlier at the outlet store for my satellite car radio.  He asked the loss control guy if it was Goodwills and he looked it over and said it was because it had a Goodwill sticker on it.   I explained that I had purchased it earlier in the day at the outlet store.  Loss control guy said  he did not believe me because it had a two-day old date on the sticker and Goodwill does not ship anything to the outlet store for at least three weeks.  I spoke up and told him that there is stuff all the time down there with dates as close as a day.  I even told him I had stuff in my van that would show him that. One example would be a dry mount press that I had bought earlier  that day at the outlet store with a green outlet price sticker dated 7/30/09 for $15.00 attached right above a retail store sticker with a date 7/25/09. (I can provide a photo of that).  The police officer did not want to get into that argument and decided to take all of the items and enter them as evidence.   This $2.99 remote that was mine changed the charge from 3^rd degree theft to 2^nd degree theft meaning higher fines and penalty.   I was then hauled to jail in handcuffs and got out the next morning to have to be in court later in the afternoon,   

I have no problem with the Loss control guy doing his job in apprehending me; I do, however, have a problem with how this is turning out.  I have to go to court and prove my innocence, incur expense for a lawyer and court costs - not to mention the embarrassment and humiliation I have suffered.   I did place the items in the cart but did not place them underneath the blanket as they have stated.   I accept responsibility for my stupidity and not paying attention to the items placed in my cart.  It was not intentional, just an oversight due to being tired.   I think what I have gone through so far is more than enough punishment.  A night at the Multnomah County Jail is something one will never forget.

It would have been nice if they could have worked this out in the store without having me arrested. I would like to think that my long term patronage to their stores would count for something.  I made a mistake. I think back to some of the mistakes Goodwill has made to me over the years and have to hope that Goodwill and I can work this out without having to go through the courts and incurring wasted time and expense, which I cant afford.   I just want to keep shopping at their stores and put this unfortunate incident behind me.