A registered sex offender with a documented history of arrests involving alleged lewd behavior toward women has been taken into custody again in Southern California after police said he was seen crouching near people inside Glendale businesses.
ABC7 Eyewitness News reporter Tim Pulliam said 39-year-old Calese Crowder was arrested by Glendale police after witnesses reported behavior similar to incidents that had led to earlier arrests in Glendale and Burbank.
The latest case was captured on surveillance video at Big Sav Discount Store, where manager Jimmy Koh told Pulliam that the same man had previously engaged in similar behavior at the store.
Surveillance Video Shows Another Store Incident
In the footage aired by ABC7, Crowder can be seen crouching near an employee who was stocking shelves inside the Glendale discount store.
Koh said the behavior was not new.
“I know he’s harmless, but it’s a weird fetish,” the manager told Pulliam.
According to Koh, this was the third time he had seen Crowder behave in a similar way at the store, describing a pattern in which the man would crouch down, look around and try to get close enough to sniff a woman’s backside.
Koh said the behavior immediately struck him as unusual the first time he witnessed it, and he recalled wondering what Crowder was doing and why he was positioning himself so close to women in the store.
Although Koh described Crowder as harmless, the repeated nature of the behavior and Crowder’s history made the latest incident more serious than an isolated act of odd conduct.
Police Say Similar Reports Came In The Same Day
Pulliam reported that Glendale police were called to a business in the 1500 block of Glenoaks Boulevard after witnesses said Crowder was crouching down and getting unusually close to other people.
Officers also responded to a Marshalls near South Brand Boulevard and East Broadway after another report of similar behavior.
Police reviewed surveillance video from the businesses and identified Crowder as the suspect, Pulliam said.
He was later located in the 100 block of South Brand Boulevard and arrested for violating the terms of his parole.
At the time of the ABC7 report, Crowder was being held without bail while the court determined what would happen next.
The fact that parole violations were involved is important because the case was not being handled as though police were dealing with a person with no prior history. Crowder had already been arrested multiple times over similar allegations and was under supervision when the latest incidents occurred.
Crowder Has A History Of Similar Arrests
Pulliam noted that Crowder had been arrested the previous summer while already on parole after reports of another alleged sniffing incident.
In August 2025, Crowder was taken into custody following an incident at a Walgreens in Burbank.
One month before that, police had also arrested him after receiving a report about a suspicious person inside the women’s department of Nordstrom Rack at the Burbank Empire Center.
According to police information cited in Pulliam’s report, Crowder was later found at a nearby Walmart, where officers said he had followed a female shopper through the store, crouched near her and engaged in inappropriate sniffing behavior.
The pattern dates back even further, with Pulliam reporting that Crowder had a documented history of arrests for lewd conduct in Glendale and Burbank going back to 2021.
Last year, after one of those arrests, Crowder admitted violating his parole and was sentenced to more than 100 days in jail.
That history naturally raises questions about why the behavior has continued despite arrests, jail time and parole supervision, which was one of the central issues raised by the ABC7 report.
Viral Barnes & Noble Video Brought Wider Attention
Crowder also drew widespread public attention in 2023 after Michaela Witter recorded an encounter inside a Barnes & Noble.
Witter’s TikTok video showed Crowder crouching down close behind her, and the clip eventually received millions of views.
In footage revisited by ABC7, Witter confronted him and asked what he was doing.
Crowder replied that he was tying his shoes, but Witter said that explanation did not match what she had observed.
“He’s just kind of behind me,” she recalled, adding that it looked like he was smelling her from behind.
Witter also accused him of behaving similarly toward another woman in the store.
That earlier viral video became one of the clearest public examples of the conduct Crowder has repeatedly been accused of, and the latest arrest shows that the concerns surrounding him did not disappear after the initial attention faded.
Repeated Arrests Raise Questions About What Comes Next
Pulliam’s report framed the latest arrest around the obvious question of why someone with a repeated history of the same alleged behavior continues to return to public places and face similar accusations.
Crowder’s prior jail sentence and parole supervision had already established that the justice system was aware of his conduct, yet police were once again responding to reports from stores in the same general region.
There is an understandable frustration in cases like this because repeated lower-level conduct can create a difficult balance for courts and law enforcement. The behavior may not involve the same level of physical violence as more serious offenses, but the repeated targeting of strangers can still make people feel unsafe and can become more concerning when it continues after earlier interventions.
In this case, the latest arrest was tied directly to an alleged parole violation, meaning the court may have greater authority to decide whether Crowder’s supervision conditions were broken and whether additional penalties are appropriate.
Store Manager Says Behavior Had Become Familiar
For Koh, the latest surveillance video did not show something completely unexpected.
He told Pulliam that he had already seen Crowder engage in similar behavior more than once, to the point that the crouching and looking around had become recognizable.
That familiarity is perhaps one of the more unsettling aspects of the story because it suggests employees were not reacting to a one-time encounter with an unfamiliar customer but to behavior they believed they had seen before.
The ABC7 report did not indicate that anyone was physically injured in the latest incident, but police nevertheless treated the repeated conduct and Crowder’s parole status seriously enough to arrest him again.
For now, Crowder remains back in custody as the court considers what comes next, while the latest case adds another chapter to a years-long pattern of allegations involving women in stores across Glendale and Burbank.
A former park ranger and wildlife conservationist, Lisa’s passion for survival started with her deep connection to nature. Raised on a small farm in northern Wisconsin, she learned how to grow her own food, raise livestock, and live off the land. Lisa is our dedicated Second Amendment news writer and also focuses on homesteading, natural remedies, and survival strategies. Lisa aims to help others live more sustainably and prepare for the unexpected.
