Police: Man Tries To Walk Out Cumming Walmart Without Paying for $900 in Goods

A Cumming man was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly tried to leave Walmart with a cart full of items for which he had not paid.

Robert Alvin Ward of Silversmith Drive in Cumming said he did not know he could not go outside without first paying for the items in his cart, according to the Cumming Police Department report.

A loss prevention officer notified police about 12:20 p.m. after stopping Ward in the vestibule area after the cart set off the stand up alarms. The security officer asked for Ward's receipt and Ward said he did not have one.

Ward told the officer he was going to the drink machine for a coke with more than $900 of goods in his cart, according to the report. Among those items were four Flipeez hats, valued at $19.98 each; a $499 vacuum cleaner; a comforter; electronics; and tools, including a clamp light and ratchet.

"Ward was on the phone with his wife when I arrived," an officer wrote in the report. "I finally had to tell him to hang up so that he could handle Walmart's paperwork and I could take him into custody for (felony) shoplifting."

Surveillance video allegedly shows Ward selecting the items in the cart, "then (head) out the interior door into the vestibule and straight toward the exterior door," where he was stopped by the security officer, the report says.

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