Antenese S. Baker, DOB 9/26/93, was arrested on a shoplifting charge back in April. But she was in jail recently, picked up on a bench warrant.
Actually, at the time she was picked up Baker had SEVEN BENCH WARRANTS, which is the most I've ever seen on the jail roster. The warrants were from Bloomington, Edina, Champlin, and Minneapolis. The warrants were for charges of theft, possession of burglary tools, receiving stolen property, some traffic charges, and giving a police officer a false name. In addition, two counties (Pine and Washington) wanted this woman for felony charges.
I guess Washington County won the wrestling match. Yesterday, Baker was "released to other authority" and it appears she went to Washington County.
According to the only criminal complaint against Baker that I could turn up in Hennepin County, click here, four women were acting suspiciously at the Eden Prairie Walmart because they placed 12 to 15 video games in a shopping cart and covered the games with clothing. They were also observed breaking security devices on two T-Mobile cell phones. The women concealed items and walked out of the store without attempting to pay. At least one loss prevention officer followed the women to the car and told them to return to the store. Instead...
The women got into a Suburban vehicle and drove off. The complaint says Walmart's loss prevention service "observed the women who had been in the store get out and run toward a neighborhood business." The complaint is not clear whether the officers followed the women on foot, or pursued in a vehicle, or observed from a distance, or clung to their windshield wiper like William Shatner in the television series TJ Hooker.
In any case, the loss prevention officer(s) saw the women run into a neighboring business. Eden Prairie police arrived and found the women, including Antenese Baker, who was hiding in a bathroom stall with one of the other suspects. They had stolen costume jewelry in the bathroom stall. At first, Baker tried to give the alias "Myeshia Braziel" but police figured out who she was. One of the other suspects opened up her mouth and spilled her guts about the stealing being done at the store, allegedly. Eden Prairie police were able to locate a number of the stolen goods worth more than a $1,000 but surely manufactured in China for a tenth of that.
In the same complaint, Baker was connected to systematic shoplifting at the Kohl's store in Bloomington, where she was also arrested. That's when it was discovered (purportedly) that Baker had a wire girdle under her shirt in which she could conceal merchandise.
Um...I'm guessing this Antenese Baker is a LARGE woman?
Interestingly, in the Kohl's shoplifting incident it was Baker herself who opened up her mouth and admitted to the shoplifting and the use of the wire girdle to facilitate that.
Baker is now charged with theft over $1,000 and possession of burglary tools, which are both felonies.
The most likely place Baker would go (if convicted) is the Shakopee Women's Prison, click here for a link.
Baker's home address is listed as 3725 6th St. N., which is a rental property owned by notorious North Minneapolis slumlord Steven Meldahl. The property was in foreclosure in 2007 but was apparently snapped up by Meldahl after that. As usual, the information on the City of Minneapolis property website is not up to date and the last sale listed is from 1994.
Most likely, the loss prevention staff members at WalMart are not officers, so they cannot go beyond the boundaries of the parking lot to pursue shoplifting suspects. I worked in loss prevention for several years at the downtown Minneapolis Dayton's store, and we weren't even allowed to chase people on foot, because if they ran out on to Nicollet Mall and got hit by a bus, for example, it would be our fault. It's a frustrating job to have sometimes, because the pay is low, the criminals are desperate, and ultimately, loss prevention staff have very little authority. Shoplifters will often use maternity underwear to stuff things into, or they walk into the store with an empty bag and it becomes pretty obvious what they'll do next. Also, they like to use big SUVs, bring a lot of people to one location (where they fan out and started concealing stuff), and then they make a run for the SUV. When I was working at Dayton's, we had a notorious north Minneapolis community leader (Nina) who ran a very lucrative booster house in your neighborhood, and she dropped off her shoplifing minions at the downtown store (driving her Lincoln Navigator or an Escalade), sat double-parked on 8th Street, and waited for them to come running out with stolen stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe smash and dash was the cousin of rifling tills which was called grab the cash and dash. I remember a snot nosed kid growing up who had a red blotch on his face..that was bash the rash and dash. Slamming liquor was drinking the mash, smash the kid with the rash and grab the cash and dash. Damn.
ReplyDeleteAnother tactic used is to throw teams in with an obvious shill that attracts the security staffs attention while the others make off with the goods. The shill ends up paying for or putting back the goods and the store never knows what hit them.
ReplyDeleteAwesome, maybe we'll see the return of codpieces as loot containers in men's fashion. Fits a few iPods or Shuffles at least. And it makes the thuggin' photos less ambiguous when posed grabbing a giant fabric and wire johnson holder while waiting for the b-u-s. You have a penis, I get it.
ReplyDelete