TAYLOR, Mich. (WXYZ) — A shopping trip turned into a unsettling ordeal for a metro Detroit woman, and according to Taylor police, she wasn't the only one targeted.
Shellee Hatch recalls August 9th and an encounter she said ultimately left her in shock while shopping at a Target near Southland Mall in Taylor.
After the same man appeared in three different store aisles, she said he struck up a conversation that went on a little too long.
Hatch said, “I started to walk away (because) I started to feel a little uncomfortable. Like, is he following me?”
She recalled, “As I started to walk away, he said, 'Wait, you have something on your backside.' And I said, ‘My backside? What you mean?’ And he says, ‘here’, and he wiped my butt. And I went, ‘Uh, uh huh,’ like that and he says, ‘Here it was’."
Hatch described, "And on my hand was just nothing but white lotion. Like, a lot of lotion. And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, where did I get that from?”
In the moment, she didn’t think much of it.
Hatch told 7 News Detroit, “I said, ‘Oh my gosh, thank you for telling me. Cause I always think people are super nice and are going to be helpful. Right? .”
“And he said, 'Yea, no problem. So, I started to walk away and he went like that again to my butt'," she recalled.
Twenty minutes later, Hatch said she spotted a Taylor police officer in the store, and that’s when she learned she wasn’t alone.
Detective Zachary DiGiacomo told 7 News Detroit, “Both incidences happened in the same day... within the hour of each other."
He said both incidents were caught on store surveillance cameras.
“An individual, male, squirted lotion on the first female's butt. She noticed it," DiGiacomo said.
He said that other woman then told store security, who then notified police.
Hatch’s daughter, Colleen Rowland, posted about the incident on social media.
“She’s now uncomfortable going to that Target. I had went with her... within the last week," she explained.
"She had asked me to go with her to go shopping for my nephew because she didn’t want to go back there alone, and so I wanted other people to have awareness that these things are happening," Rowland said.
Investigators said the man was arrested, but the chief said the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office did not authorize charges because it needed more elements to fit a possible charge of 4th degree criminal sexual conduct.
Hatch wants the man punished.
"It's probably going to escalate. If it's starting out like this, it's probably going to escalate to keep getting worse and worse, especially if he's not stopped and gets in trouble to stop," she said.
Detective Digiacomo said, “Unfortunately, if you become a victim, do exactly what these victims did. They notified us right away, got us involved and notified the security team and all of it was caught on video.”
Hatch said, "I'm just going to be more aware, and I want women to be more aware."
“I’m not going to be so trusting… which is sad. I’m not. I don’t want it to happen to me again or anybody," she said.
Anyone who believes they’ve been victimized is encouraged to call Taylor police at 734-287-6611 ext. 2034.
