Can OM not feed their players?

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OXFORD - Ole Miss offensive lineman Rod Taylor’s arrest April 3 for an alleged shoplifting incident at Walmart may not have come, as first theoried, because of an accident.

Oxford Police Department officer Steven Lewis wrote in a report obtained Tuesday by The Clarion-Ledgerthat Walmart loss prevention employee Gary Ferguson told Lewis that Taylor rang up items in a self-checkout line, paid for those items and then placed items he had not paid for into plastic bags he then put into his shopping cart.

The items under question, according to the report, were: two cans of baked beans; onions; potatoes; a 12-pack of grape soda; Ocean Spray juice; hamburger meat and one bag of charcoal. The total value was $41.53.

Taylor faces a court date of May 25 for a charge of shoplifting (first offense). The Clarion-Ledger obtained the report through an open records request.

Ferguson declined comment when reached by The Clarion-Ledger on Tuesday, saying Walmart policy is for employees not to speak with media.

While Lewis was transporting Taylor to the Lafayette County Detention Center, Taylor told Lewis that he had been distracted by a phone call about football while checking out his items and forgot to ring up the remainder of the items in his shopping cart, according to the report.

Lewis wrote in the report that he during his review of Walmart's security footage he did not see Taylor talking on the phone while checking out. A source told The Clarion-Ledger last week that Taylor had placed but accidentally failed to pay for two bags of charcoal in a basket underneath his shopping cart.

Taylor, a Callaway graduate, appeared in 10 games last season while battling a shoulder trouble and underwent offseason surgery that kept him out of spring workouts. He finished last fall as the second-string left tackle behind Laremy Tunsil but figures to move back to guard this year.

The junior’s status remains in the air. “If we have a young man that makes a poor decision that gets arrested, there is going to be consequences,” coach Hugh Freeze said Saturday. “I have plans that can decide how severe those consequences are based on what you do from this point forward with the poor decision. “We all make them. It’s what you do with it after that. I wish none of them do. But we do. Kids make poor decisions, adults make poor decisions. He knows exactly where we’re headed from here. We’ll see what happens. But there are consequences, there will be.”

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