BOSTON—A suspected serial shoplifter already wanted on seven active warrants was arrested again this weekend in Boston’s Back Bay, after police say he walked out of Dick’s Sporting Goods on Boylston Street with merchandise still tagged and unpaid for.

According to Boston Police, officers were dispatched around 11:39 a.m. Saturday to a larceny in progress at the massive Dick’s House of Sport near the Prudential Center — one of the city’s busiest shopping destinations — where they observed 60-year-old Darrin O’Neil of Lowell allegedly concealing clothing before exiting the store.

Officers recovered roughly $408 worth of merchandise and took O’Neil into custody. Then came the part that stops people cold.

Police say O’Neil was already wanted on seven outstanding warrants, tied to a web of alleged theft and fraud cases — including larceny from a building, credit-card-related crimes, receiving stolen property, and multiple shoplifting charges.

Seven warrants. And yet he was still walking freely through one of Boston’s most heavily trafficked retail corridors until the moment he was allegedly caught again.

O’Neil is expected to be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on charges including larceny under $1,200 and the rarely invoked designation of “common and notorious thief,” a label reserved for repeat offenders under Massachusetts law.

This is what “enforcement” looks like in modern Boston: a suspect accumulates cases, warrants stack up, paperwork grows — and nothing changes until another store gets hit. Boylston Street stays busy, shoplifters keep moving, and the system only reacts after the next arrest.

For shoppers near the Prudential Center, Saturday’s scene may have looked like accountability. For retailers watching the same faces return again and again, it looked like business as usual.