Olympia man admits to stealing clothes from store, pointing knife at employee

An Olympia man admitted to stealing clothes from a retail store and pointing a knife at an employee who confronted him.

Olympia police arrested Collin Carden, 29, on Tue., Nov. 2, after employees of the Dick’s Sporting Goods store along Lake Boulevard reported two suspects allegedly stuffing clothes into their backpacks.

An employee told law enforcement that he walked over to two males in the store and allegedly saw them putting clothes into their backpacks, prompting one suspect to flee.

The employee said he managed to grab Carden, who had also turned to walk out of the store, but the suspect allegedly spun around, pulled out a pocketknife from his pants, and said “You want me to use this? Let me go.”

Carden ran out of the store with stolen items worth $290.97 still in his backpack, according to the employee. The total value of the clothes stolen by both suspects was estimated to be around $800.

Police later spotted the suspects but one of them got away, leaving Carden with law enforcement.

Carden admitted to police that he stole clothes from the store and fought with an employee.

Police added that Carden admitted to pulling out a knife, but the suspect also insisted that he did not threaten the employee as he only wanted to be let go.

When he was informed that he was being detained, Carden told authorities, “I will save you a lot of time, I gave some heroin to ‘Bullet’ for some clothes that he stole from there.” Bullet was the street name of the second suspect.

Carden was booked at the Thurston County Jail for first-degree robbery. 'Bullet' was not located by police.