Tweet
This is not my story, but a friends. I used to work at Hollywood video and I am still great friends with my old manager. For the past few months they have had terrible theft in the store. So much that Hollywood actually allowed them to schedule an additional employee on every shift to deter shoplifters. Today they finally busted the thief. Here is the email my friend sent me:
Ok so this dude comes in while I'm alone and on the phone with payroll and puts his bag down between the sensormatic and the counter and I thought that it was weird. He looked normal and had relatively nice clothes and a Red Sox hat w/ wire glasses. I definately thought the bag placement was weird. Like he would dash out with it when I was busy. I rushed off the phone and checked on him. He was definately acting weird. He worked his way to the front and was fake-looking at the crap tables. No thief ever looks at the good stuff. As he walked between tables I noticed he definately had movies in his cargo pockets. I calmly grabbed his bag and put it behind the counter, locked the door, and walked out to him. He asked some stock question about a video game as he tried to walk by me and so I stepped in front of him and asked him to remove the movies. He asked the question again and so I told him to open his pockets. He slowly pulled out of his pockets the four movies and handed them to me. I flipped open my cell and dialed 911 and he was like "what are you doin, man?" "please dont call the cops, man" "Hey, where's my fuckin bag" and I said we'll let the cops figure that out. The cops arrived in like 45 seconds. Took him outside while I gave my statement, cuffed him, and took him away.
About an hour later the arresting officer calls and asks if I would come down to the police station. He said there was more than we knew. He picked me up (I had to ride in back cuz an older lady was on a ride-along. Way nerve-racking) And we went downtown. We get there and its like CSI. I am lead into an investigation room with a two sided window and all I can see is his head above the glass. They fill me in on how PC Market of Choice had called earler cuz he had stolen a bagel and organic juice and their LP guy was there. We both went in and he was stripped down to his boxers and cuffed to a bolted-down chair, crying. He had his glasses off and I immediately recoginzed him as a guy I had seen a bunch that never rents and usually looks way more scummy. I could see his track marks and scabs all over his skinny body. On the table the contents of his backpack are sprawled out. Crazyness dude. Eight wallets, two baggies with weed, a baggie of tobacco, rolling papers, his clothes, a clear pocket-protector-type thing with siringes in it, a few balls of foil (with heroin in them I'm sure), a cheese bagel, a odwalla orange juice, and eight more DVDs that were in his boxers.
The investigator interupts him as he starts to apolgize to us and he fills us in that he had been in my store 7 days a week for the last couple months stealing at least $100 dollars worth of DVDs to support his heroin habit. The investigator also says that when asked where he's been selling them off that he said he'd been trading them with his dealer for "H" and it was getting increasingly more difficult to disguise himself in our store.
I was given the product and an evidence release form as well as a copy of his arrest sheet. He was arrested on 3 counts of robbery three (he had stolen some hand tools from Tru Value on Willamette yesterday as well) as well as 4 counts posession of illegal narcotics, posession of un-permitted medical devices, and posession of illegal sustances with intent to distribute.
The officer told me to save the security tape and I said I had already pulled it for them. He had me sign a bunch of paperwork and permission to testify in a month or two. He called me a hero twice and if the junkie was actually telling the truth we should see a significant difference in our external theft. We had performed an inventory earlier yesterday and posted 38 movies in seven days. The count was 67 last wednesday. We'll see how big of an impact he was. His araignment was today @ 1pm.
Anyway, I know we all love it when a thief or an SC gets put in their place so I thought I would share this.
Ok so this dude comes in while I'm alone and on the phone with payroll and puts his bag down between the sensormatic and the counter and I thought that it was weird. He looked normal and had relatively nice clothes and a Red Sox hat w/ wire glasses. I definately thought the bag placement was weird. Like he would dash out with it when I was busy. I rushed off the phone and checked on him. He was definately acting weird. He worked his way to the front and was fake-looking at the crap tables. No thief ever looks at the good stuff. As he walked between tables I noticed he definately had movies in his cargo pockets. I calmly grabbed his bag and put it behind the counter, locked the door, and walked out to him. He asked some stock question about a video game as he tried to walk by me and so I stepped in front of him and asked him to remove the movies. He asked the question again and so I told him to open his pockets. He slowly pulled out of his pockets the four movies and handed them to me. I flipped open my cell and dialed 911 and he was like "what are you doin, man?" "please dont call the cops, man" "Hey, where's my fuckin bag" and I said we'll let the cops figure that out. The cops arrived in like 45 seconds. Took him outside while I gave my statement, cuffed him, and took him away.
About an hour later the arresting officer calls and asks if I would come down to the police station. He said there was more than we knew. He picked me up (I had to ride in back cuz an older lady was on a ride-along. Way nerve-racking) And we went downtown. We get there and its like CSI. I am lead into an investigation room with a two sided window and all I can see is his head above the glass. They fill me in on how PC Market of Choice had called earler cuz he had stolen a bagel and organic juice and their LP guy was there. We both went in and he was stripped down to his boxers and cuffed to a bolted-down chair, crying. He had his glasses off and I immediately recoginzed him as a guy I had seen a bunch that never rents and usually looks way more scummy. I could see his track marks and scabs all over his skinny body. On the table the contents of his backpack are sprawled out. Crazyness dude. Eight wallets, two baggies with weed, a baggie of tobacco, rolling papers, his clothes, a clear pocket-protector-type thing with siringes in it, a few balls of foil (with heroin in them I'm sure), a cheese bagel, a odwalla orange juice, and eight more DVDs that were in his boxers.
The investigator interupts him as he starts to apolgize to us and he fills us in that he had been in my store 7 days a week for the last couple months stealing at least $100 dollars worth of DVDs to support his heroin habit. The investigator also says that when asked where he's been selling them off that he said he'd been trading them with his dealer for "H" and it was getting increasingly more difficult to disguise himself in our store.
I was given the product and an evidence release form as well as a copy of his arrest sheet. He was arrested on 3 counts of robbery three (he had stolen some hand tools from Tru Value on Willamette yesterday as well) as well as 4 counts posession of illegal narcotics, posession of un-permitted medical devices, and posession of illegal sustances with intent to distribute.
The officer told me to save the security tape and I said I had already pulled it for them. He had me sign a bunch of paperwork and permission to testify in a month or two. He called me a hero twice and if the junkie was actually telling the truth we should see a significant difference in our external theft. We had performed an inventory earlier yesterday and posted 38 movies in seven days. The count was 67 last wednesday. We'll see how big of an impact he was. His araignment was today @ 1pm.
Anyway, I know we all love it when a thief or an SC gets put in their place so I thought I would share this.
Comment