CHARGED: Kmart employee accused of allowing specific people to obtain merchandise for free

RACINE COUNTY (WITI) -- A 20-year-old Racine man has been charged, accused of serving as an employee, and allowing specific people to steal merchandise from Kmart.

DeShawn Brooks faces a felony charge of retail theft for an incident that occurred on the evening of November 4th.

Police were dispatched to the Kmart store on Douglas Avenue in the Village of Caledonia around 6:30 p.m. for a shoplifting complaint.

There, police say they met with a loss prevention employee who said he had detained two women who acted in concert with a store employee to obtain merchandise for free.

The criminal complaint filed against Brooks says serving as a Kmart employee, he would either slide items past the price scenner without ringing them up, or he would scan items and then manually void the entries.

The loss prevention employee was able to provide police with documents showing Brooks had trasferred at least $2,500 worth of merchandise on at least five occasions -- but that dollar amount could go up once the investigation is complete, according to the complaint.

The complaint says police spoke with Brooks, who admitted to deliberately failing to scan numerous items on at least four or five occasions in order to enable specific people to obtain the merchandise for free.

Police say Brooks was fully cooperative with the investigation.