Actually, M Ted, Kohl's never did "prosecute Toogood" for the alleged theft in Fort Worth, Texas. She was supposed to appear in court to face the charges brought against her in the theft, and she never showed. There is an outstanding warrant for her arrest, and since she left the state, I'm guessing she'll be extradicted back to Texas at some point to face those charges.

There is a very detailed article about Toogood and the clan of Travelers to which she belongs that migrates annually from Texas to Indiana, known as the Greenhorn Carrolls, here at the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington TX Star-Telegram website (click on link): http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/4117051.htm This article was published the day before Toogood turned herself in to police in Indiana.

Please note the portion of the description of Irish Travelers in the article that reads: "Most of the men make their living in home-improvement and business-repair work, such as asphalt paving, painting and roofing. Law enforcement authorities said some scam their clients in the process, but they are quick to point out that many Travellers are good, law-abiding citizens." Sounds to me like a fair acknowledgment that not all Travelers are bad or lawless people. (I guess we shouldn't stereotype the media any more than we should stereotype the Travelers!)

You'll find there, too, some information about Toogood including the fact that she has driver's licenses in four states, not just two: Indiana, Missouri, Texas and New Jersey. I'm not sure that any of them is a valid license, since one of the warrants for her arrest in Texas is for failure to pay a traffic ticket she received for driving without a valid license!

Then there's the warrant for her arrest on the theft charges. The article gives a detailed description of the scam that Toogood and her partner pulled in the Fort Worth Kohl's: "According to the police report, Gorman and the woman put several items of clothing into a shopping cart and then went to the check-out line. There, Gorman occupied the clerk by exchanging six pairs of jeans, the report stated. As the clerk dealt with the exchange, Gorman pushed the shopping cart containing the stolen items to Carroll, who pulled it to the front of the store, the report said. The women, who made no attempt to pay for the items in the shopping cart, were stopped outside the store and arrested, the report said."

So it seems that this woman isn't one of the "good, law-abiding citizens" described in the article! I've read elsewhere that at the Kohl's in Indiana on September 13th, Toogood attempted to return some articles of clothing without a store receipt, and that security cameras had tracked her movements after she left the store because it is the store's policy in cases of suspicious activity such as the receiptless-return attempt (a common scam, apparently). In fact, I read in an Indiana-based editorial column that Toogood had in fact scammed that particular store before; perhaps store security was videotaping her in order to try to gather sufficient evidence of criminal activity before arresting her. If so, they got evidence of activity, all right, though not exactly what they might have expected!

So now she's under arrest and facing prosecution. Of course, this does not mean that she should face persecution based on her ethnic/cultural origin. But regardless of her race or creed or clan, she has been arrested several times, in more than one state, and she must face prosecution for her alleged crimes. Please, let's not confuse prosecution with persecution! Let's not presume her to be guilty without the judicial process that will determine whether her acts rise to the level of criminal behavior, but on the other hand let's not downplay or dismiss what she has done simply because she belongs to an ethnic group and we want to be non-prejudicial.

Instead of being politically correct, let's be fair. And while it's not fair to condemn the entire group of Travelers because some of them are convicted criminals, it is fair to be less than blindly trusting of individuals of any race/creed/national origin who are either convicted criminals or are intimately connected with convicted criminals. I don't think it's prejudicial to be cautious.