AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – A man is in custody after police said he set up a camera inside the dressing room of a Target store in Auburn Hills.
UPDATE: Man identified, charged
It happened around 4:45 p.m. Sunday at the Target on Brown Road, just across I-75 from Great Lakes Crossing.
Police are hoping to identify a teenage girl who was filmed before they took down the camera.
“This is disturbing, and it’s a problem,” Auburn Hills police Lt. Ryan Gagnon said.
Gagnon said the problem involves a 46-year-old Orion Township man with a history of this kind of issue.
“They had an individual who they believed had installed a secret or hidden camera inside one of the fitting rooms at Target,” Gagnon said. “He was utilizing his cellphone, essentially to record and capture videos of people changing inside the fitting room.”
He targeted the store in December, too, putting a hole in a fitting room wall, according to authorities.
“He’s known to us from a previous incident doing the same thing in 2015,” Gagnon said. “He’s a registered sex offender.”
Police said the teenage girl caught on video was with an older woman at the store.
“They were last seen leaving the store in a Ford Escape -- a tan- or silver-colored Ford Escape,” Gagnon said.
The Ford Escape also has a sunroof and a luggage rack on top of the roof.
Although the man is in custody, it’s an alarming incident for customers.
“The privacy thing just totally went away,” customer Catherine Ramakers said. “You’ve got no security there.”
Target released the following statement:
“At Target, we have no tolerance for this behavior in our stores. Our team identified suspicious behavior and tampering to a fitting room that resulted in us immediately calling law enforcement, who quickly arrived to our store, and made an arrest. We appreciate the support of the Auburn Hills Police Department, we’ve provided them with information, photos and security footage for their use in reporting, and we will continue to assist in any way that we can be helpful to their case.”