Inside the shoplifting bust of Albuquerque Journal editor Patrick Ethridge

When officers from the Rio Rancho Police Department first approached Patrick Ethridge, he was self-scanning a cart of groceries at a Walmart on Unser Boulevard, the city’s main drag. It was shortly after 7 p.m. on Aug. 24, and Ethridge, 47, the executive editor and vice president of the Albuquerque Journal, was wearing a motorcycle festival T-shirt with a slogan on the back: “Chasin’ Tail Raisin’ Hell.” The police told him that they’d seen his kids causing trouble elsewhere in the store.

His two teenage sons, the officers said, had been caught on camera knocking over displays and opening Monster energy drinks that they hadn’t paid for, discarding the empty cans on shelves. Now they were all wanted in the back office, where store employees would soon show Ethridge and the boys — along with a young woman whose connection to Ethridge is not made clear in the video or audio — some damning footage. Ethridge finished scanning his groceries, carefully rotating bottles of Gatorade to register every barcode, and then agreed to escort his sons to the back.

Inside Walmart’s de-facto situation room, a wall of monitors displayed vantage points from throughout the store. As Ethridge saw, customers were being watched while they opened a door in the freezer aisles, while they gawked at a $4,000 flat-screen TV, and while they rang up groceries at the same kind of self-checkout register he’d been using.

As this was going on, three responding officers stepped out of the room and leaned against a wall next to a Redbox movie rental machine. In body-camera footage obtained by Searchlight, two of them pass the time by bantering about the NFL — debating fine points like whether there’s a more unforgivable sin than being a New England Patriots fan.

https://searchlightnm.org/inside-the-shoplifting-bust-of-albuquerque-journal-editor-patrick-ethridge/

A man and his two kids were trespassed from a Walmart in Rio Rancho, New Mexico in an alleged shoplifting scandal. Police were called to the store after two boys were allegedly acting disorderly by knocking over displays and drinking two Monster Energy drinks without paying before stashing the cans on a shelf, according to the Rio Rancho Police Department.

Body Camera footage shows officers approaching the boys when they are led to their father, who was allegedly busy with his own scheme at the self-checkout register. Police said Patrick Ethridge, 47, who worked as the Executive Editor and Vice President of The Albuquerque Journal was “skip-scanning” items by passing some items through without paying. All three were led to a loss prevention area in the store where they were issued a summons for shoplifting. Ethridge, reportedly, parted ways with his job shortly after the alleged crime. Watch the incident unfold on this episode of Law&Crime BodyCam.