YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Police Department went the extra mile to investigate a possible Sunday evening theft from Sparkle Market, 3623 Meridian Road.

An officer was working at the store when an employee told him a man riding a store scooter drove past the service desk with items in the scooter’s basket, but the employee was unsure if the man paid for the merchandise, according to a police report.

The officer went outside and saw a van pulling out of the lot. A store scooter was next to the parking space of the vehicle.

The officer and employee watched surveillance video and saw the scooter driver enter store just after 5 p.m., using the scooter and driving past the checkouts without paying 10 minutes later, the report states.

The officer used the license plate he saw on the man’s vehicle and drove to the West Boston Avenue address where the van was registered, the report states. The van was not occupied.

At 5:54 p.m., another officer arrested Claude E. Bussey III, 50, of the West Boston address, on four warrants unrelated to the Sparkle investigation, the report states.

The warrants were on two charges of misdemeanor theft, one of failure to display license plates and one of being in a park after hours. Those charges dated from Oct. 31 and Nov. 3. He will be arraigned Friday in Youngstown Municipal Court. The report did not state whether Bussey would be charged in connection to the offenses at Sparkle.

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