Shoplift Turns to Robbery Charges

The Sonora Police Department arrested 27-year-old Kyle C. Abate of Sonora for Robbery charges yesterday after assaulting loss prevention to further his crime.

 

At around 4:30 pm on Monday, December 9th, one of our officers was patrolling the parking lot of Walmart on Sanguinetti Road and heard a disturbance coming from the area of the entrance.  He saw Abate shoving a Loss Prevention employee out of the doors of the business.  Abate then began running from the employee in the direction of Petsmart.  Our officer quickly intercepted Abate, who was verbally aggressive and noncooperative with the officer.  The officer ultimately detained Abate in order to further investigate the incident.

 

Our officer learned that Mr. Abate was seen inside of Walmart concealing food items in his clothing.  Loss Prevention attempted to question Abate near the exit, at which point Abate became verbally and physically aggressive toward the Walmart employee and started shoving him backward and out of the front doors of the store.

 

The value of the stolen property was estimated at less than $10, but because he used violence to commit the theft, Abate was arrested and booked on a felony charge.  He was also in possession of an opened bottle of alcohol and charged with having an opened container in public as well.