As citizens gave chase, this smiling thrift store thief grabbed ‘a large rock,’ Texas cops say
He may have been smiling in his mugshot, but the chase out the door of that thrift shop could have ended up very differently for the man who police in Odessa, Texas say tried to rob the place.
A gunshot rang out Saturday in downtown Odessa as an employee of the Door of Hope thrift store chased a man wearing a backpack down an alley, video obtained by KOSA shows.
The store employee was joined in the chase by another citizen, but it was the employee who pulled a gun and fired at Shawn Paul Melonakos, 36, after police say he stuffed handfuls of clothes in the backpack and tried to leave without paying.
Melonakos had a voucher for free clothes from Door of Hope, Cpl. Steve LeSuere, an Odessa Police Department spokesman, told McClatchy, but also shoved a pair of sneakers valued at $8.99 inside the backpack. When the employee confronted Melonakos, police say he grabbed “ a large rock” outside the store and tried to hit the employee with it before running off.
“The complainant feared for his life and brandished a firearm before firing one round,” according to a news release from Odessa police.
He ran a block and a half down East Eighth Street after the employee’s gunshot missed. The dynamic citizen duo caught up with Melonakos near the intersection of Crescent Drive and Beverly Street, according to the Odessa American.
“I yelled at my kids to get down, that they were shooting,” Jennifer Sanchez, who was leaving a nearby video game store when she and her three daughters saw the scene unfold in front of them, told KOSA. “He starts helping him chase the other guy, and then we heard a shot. I heard my daughter yell, so I honked the horn.”
The two men had Melonakos pinned to the ground when police arrived, just after 7 p.m., according to KWES.
The release states that Melonakos had a parole violation warrant and gave police a false name at the scene. Ector County court records indicate that he was released in 2015 after being convicted of assault/familiy violence.
He has been charged with felony robbery, possession of methamphetamine, and failure to identify. His bond is set at $34,000 on those charges, but will be held on the parole violation as well, according to jail records.
Despite all that, he still flashed an expressive grin in the booking photo that has made the story national news. It prompted Newsweek to ask in a tweet, “Is this guy America’s happiest criminal?”
This story was originally published August 21, 2018 at 8:45 AM.