Baker City pair accused of stealing more than $1,000 in groceries
Amber Morgan Meadows and Tyson Blaine Streeter are accused of taking $1,049.40 in groceries from Baker City's Albertsons, pushing the case into felony territory.
Amber Morgan Meadows, 28, and Tyson Blaine Streeter, 39, now face first-degree theft charges after prosecutors say they loaded more than $1,000 in groceries into two carts at Baker City’s Albertsons and walked out without paying. The alleged loss, $1,049.40, is small enough to fit in a couple of shopping carts but large enough under Oregon law to move the case from a misdemeanor shoplifting matter into felony territory.
That dollar figure matters because Oregon defines theft in the first degree as taking property worth $1,000 or more in a single or aggregate transaction. First-degree theft is a Class C felony, which can bring consequences far beyond a citation, including a felony record and possible jail time if there is a conviction. In a city of 10,135 people and a county of 16,750, a case tied to a well-known grocery store quickly becomes a local accountability story, not just a loss-prevention problem.
Baker City police cited Streeter on April 18. He is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, May 7, at 1:15 p.m. in Baker County Circuit Court, which is on the second floor of the Baker County Courthouse and serves Oregon’s 8th Judicial District. For Meadows, Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Spaulding filed an April 30 affidavit seeking a warrant to issue a citation after police had not cited her immediately following an interview on March 21.
Spaulding’s affidavit relied on Baker City police officer Kyle Loomis’s report, along with store surveillance video and Albertsons inventory figures. The video allegedly showed Meadows and Streeter loading groceries into separate carts and leaving the store without paying. An Albertsons asset-protection specialist later valued the merchandise at $1,049.40.
The case shows how retail theft in a small community can move quickly from store security to criminal court when police have video, inventory records and follow-up interviews to work with. At 1120 Campbell St., near Campbell and Cherry streets, Albertsons sits in the middle of daily shopping traffic, and losses that clear the felony threshold can ripple outward in ways shoppers notice later, from tighter security to more controlled access to merchandise.
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