Foothills Area
July 24, 3:15 p.m.
A drunk, hungry panhandler with an apparently strong craving for meat shoplifted scads of it after being denied the meat for free—justifying his theft by saying that if roles were reversed and deputies had been hungry and broke, he'd have given them food, a PCSD report stated.
The subject was apprehended in a north-side Albertson's supermarket, where security guards were holding him forcefully to the ground after having caught him pushing a whole cart full of meat products toward the door. The man said he'd come into the store and had asked if he could just have some meat because he was hungry, and he'd been turned away.
Deputies had difficulty understanding him because of his slurred speech and boozy odor—suggesting he was highly intoxicated—but they heard him say "he was just hungry" and "just needed" the meat he stole. He said, "If they were hungry and needed a sandwich, he would give them a sandwich."
Then, he said, after he took the meat past the registers (again, allegedly feeling it was only right he be allowed to do so) he was "jumped" by "one of these motherfuckers" (a guard). He admitted he "took a swing" at one of them—which was why they'd been pinning him down.
The man was taken to jail ... where at least he was promised a meal.
