--- title: "Fleeing Shoplifter Surrenders To Marine Vet In His Dress Blues" date: "2017-12-13" modified: "2017-12-13" authors: - name: "James Clark" job_title: "Editor-in-Chief" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/james-clark/" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/shoplifter-surrenders-retired-gunny-dress-blues/" categories: - "Around the World" - "Marine Corps" - "Military Branches" - "News" - "United States" tags: - "justice" --- # Fleeing Shoplifter Surrenders To Marine Vet In His Dress Blues ![]() When a shoplifter decided to snag some swag from a Walmart in Plano, Texas, on Dec. 9, he committed a critical intelligence error: The local Marine Corps League was hosting a [Toys for Tots]() donation drive in front of the business. And you know what that means: There were Marines on hand — including at least one former gunnery sergeant who’s clearly kept up with daily PT since getting out. When Marine veteran Nathan Hanson saw fellow volunteers chasing a man out of the store last Saturday, his first thought was that the thief had stolen from Toys for Tots, an annual-Corps sponsored campaign to collect new and unwrapped Christmas gifts for children in the community, [according to]() KXAS-TV, a Fort Worth, Texas-based NBC news station. “I just saw some of our other volunteers trying to grab this guy,” Hanson, who served in the Marines from 1996 to 2010, told Task & Purpose via Facebook messenger. “So I assumed maybe a volunteer had set their Toys For Tots collection bucket down and maybe he had grab cash out of it. *Ho-ho-ho nope, not on my watch,* Hanson must have thought as he took off in pursuit — never mind that he was decked out in his dress blues, down to the slippery soles of his Corfam shoes. Hanson pursued the alleged shoplifter, 25-year-old William Horn, through traffic and across an intersection. But those leather kicks aren’t made for running — a fact a trio of devil dogs discovered in 2015 — and while pounding the pavement, Hanson slipped. "I fell on my face when I got over there,” Hanson [told]() NBC. “And then I got up and I yelled at him, 'You're not getting away, I'm going to catch you!'" With a patrol car headed in Horn’s direction, and Hanson closing in along with a fellow Marine vet, Alisia Dunning, the thief slowed his roll. Who knows: Maybe he was familiar with other stories about Marines who pursued would-be thieves. Or he was just weighed down by the $91 in random electronics equipment he swiped from Walmart. Related: These Marines In Their Dress Blues Chased Down 3 Suspected Thieves » "He realized he couldn't get away, and at that point he slowed down and stopped and said, 'I give up, I'm sorry,'" Hanson [told]() NBC. "He got down, and I just waited there until the Plano Police Department came over." In the pursuit, Hanson tore his uniform and lost his cover… but a [Facebook fundraiser]() launched to replace his uniform items raised more than $500 in just a few days. Hanson, embarrassed by the attention, told Task & Purpose that the extra funds would be donated back to Toys for Tots. "Once a Marine, always a Marine," Dunning told NBC. "It's our duty to take care of those that are in need. Even though Walmart is not necessarily a person, no one deserves to be stolen from." *Update: The gunnery sergeant has weighed in on T&P;'s Facebook page with some interesting new details.* ![]() **WATCH NEXT:** ## Author James Clark is the editor-in-chief of Task & Purpose. He is a former Marine and a veteran of the War in Afghanistan. ### Author social links [Twitter]() [LinkedIn]()