ALBUQUERQUE — It took an hour of waiting to get the first one.

The suspect exited out the side door of a Kohl’s store with a black duffel bag full of clothing and shoes. But before he could make a getaway, he was apprehended by patient Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office deputies, who pounced and quickly placed him in handcuffs.

Within another two hours, deputies nabbed five more accused shoplifters outside the store and a nearby Home Depot in the northwest section of Albuquerque.

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Garret McKenney, a deputy first class with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, goes through merchandise recovered in February after the arrest of a suspected shoplifter outside a Kohl’s store in Albuquerque. The new charges of “organized retail crime” and “aggravated shoplifting” were created in state legislation approved overwhelmingly earlier this year and consider the combined value of merchandise stolen to potentially elevate them to felonies.

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William Coogler speaks with Deanna Aragon and other deputies with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office who participated in a shoplifting sting operation at various stores in Albuquerque on Thursday.

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Deputy First Class Jeffrey Naas, with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, walks Eli Montaño to the back of a squad car Thursday after he was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting at a Kohl’s in Albuquerque.



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