Police arrest man suspected of many Meijer thefts

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Updated: March 4, 2012 8:16AM

AURORA — Aurora police have charged a Downers Grove man with retail theft from a Meijer store — and say he is a suspect at least nine other retail thefts, many of them at other Meijers in the area.

At 6:38 p.m. Tuesday, police arrested David Morelock, 25, of the 1900 block of Loomes Avenue, Downers Grove, and charged him with misdemeanor retail theft at the Meijer store at 808 N. Route 59, according to reports.

Police said store security officers spotted Morelock loading items into two gift bags he had in his cart. Police said Morelock put prescription drugs, strawberries, grapes, cashews, cheesecake, razors, whitening strips, Chee-tos and skin care lotion, worth $11,422 total, into the bags, then parked the cart near the door. He started to take the items out of the store, hesitated, then dropped the items back into the cart, police said.

Morelock was arrested by officers for concealing the items in the bag in an attempt to commit a retail theft, police said. Morelock told the officers that if he’d known they were going to arrest him, he would have run, according to reports.

Morelock is charged with stealing $301 worth of items from a Bolingbrook Meijer on Jan. 27; items worth $1,185 from the same Meijer on Jan. 28; and items worth $1,449 from another Bolingbrook Meijer on Sunday, police said. Police said he also is a suspect in other thefts from Meijer stores across the region, including Des Plaines.

He has been charged with theft or retail theft in Chicago on Nov. 25 and Dec. 11, 2011, and on Jan. 6, 21 and 25, police said.

DuPage County prosecutors would not authorize felony charges against Morelock in the Tuesday incident because officers stopped him before he removed the items from the store, police said.