Glendale police said they arrested 39-year-old Calese Crowder last week, according to ABC 7. Crowder is a registered sex offender with earlier arrests in the San Fernando Valley tied to allegations that he sniffed women’s buttocks. Officers said a call came in on Friday about a business in the 1500 block of Glenoaks Boulevard, close to Jefferson Elementary School. People at the scene told police they watched Crowder drop into a crouch and move in close to others, according to the department. ABC 7 Eyewitness News later received surveillance video from Big Sav Discount Store. That video shows the man lowering himself near a worker who was putting stock on shelves. Jimmy Koh, the store’s manager, spoke about what he had seen. “I know he’s harmless, but it’s a weird fetish,” Koh said. He told reporters the same kind of conduct had already happened at his store two other times. Big Sav manager describes three similar encounters at the same store Koh said Crowder would first get down in a way that looked routine. “Crouching down like he normally would, and he’ll just look around and try to take the chance to sniff like any woman’s butt,” Koh said. He recalled his reaction the first time he noticed it. “The first time I caught him, I was like, what is this guy doing? He looks creepy,” Koh said. Police said a separate call sent officers to a Marshalls near South Brand Boulevard and East Broadway over comparable reports. Investigators then went through camera footage from the stores. They said Crowder appeared in that video and was later found in the 100 block of South Brand Boulevard. He was booked for a parole violation, police said. A judge will decide what happens next. The last update indicated he was being held with no bail. Such bizarre fetishes have surfaced in other disturbing incidents, such as when a Pennsylvania woman went to Walmart for an oil change and an employee started sniffing her. Earlier reporting said Crowder was arrested again in August 2025 after another sniffing complaint at a Walgreens in Burbank. Police said he was already on parole then. Those accounts also pointed to similar lewd-conduct arrests in Glendale and Burbank going back to 2021. Politicians have also faced accusations of similar fetishes, such as when a former Ohio MAGA mayor was alleged to have sniffed a teenage girl’s underwear. He admitted a parole violation last year and received a sentence of more than 100 days in jail, those reports said. Roughly a month before the Walgreens case, officers detained him after someone reported a suspicious person lingering in the women’s section at Nordstrom Rack in the Burbank Empire Center. Police said they later found him at a nearby Walmart and that he had been following a female shopper. Police stated last year: “While in the women’s section, the suspect was observed following a female customer, crouching near her, and engaging in lewd behavior by inappropriately sniffing her buttocks.” They also said: “Given the nature of the behavior, officers made contact with the suspect and detained him for further investigation.” Crowder also drew public attention in 2023 over an alleged stalking case that was filmed. Michaela Witter said he followed her inside a Barnes and Noble in Burbank in August 2023. The TikTok video she posted of the incident drew millions of views. The clip shows Crowder crouched near her legs. When Witter asked what he was doing, he said he was tying his shoes, she recounted. She said it looked as if he was smelling her from behind. Witter also said he did the same thing to another woman in the store. Reporting from that period said a court ordered 60 days in jail for alleged peeping and prowling in other cases, and that he was later released after serving that time.