Costco Thieves Walk Right Into Cops' Trap After Stealing $2,000 of Electronics
Though popular media often paints criminals as brilliantly scheming masterminds or thugs with an excess of physical prowess, things work out a little differently in real life. Truthfully, most criminals aren’t all that smart.
My wife’s grandfather worked as a guard at Folsom State Prison in California, the penitentiary where Johnny Cash played his famous show. During his time there, he watched a pair of inmates quite literally paint themselves into a corner.
He saw an inmate who sold fried “chicken” out of a commissary cart bring down the ire of his fellow prisoners when they discovered he was peddling feline instead of poultry. That landed him in solitary confinement — for his own protection.
The hijinks pulled by a trio of would-be thieves in Seattle, Washington, on March 14 proved every bit as silly as those examples. According to the SPD Blotter, it began at a Costco in the Emerald City.
The Seattle Police Department got a call from Loss Prevention officers within the Costco while the robbery was in process. See, one of the thieves had stolen from the store before.
If it’s true that you can’t go home again, then it’s doubly veracious that you shouldn’t rob the same store twice. Yet this thief decided to give it a go.
That got the SPD’s attention, and in no time, they’d swarmed to the back door, which served as a fire exit. As they pulled in, they discovered the thieves’ 18-year-old getaway driver.
In no time flat, they had the driver boxed in and in custody. Then they only had to wait.
They knew they were at the right place. How? They could hear the thieves rhythmically kicking the doors, trying to get them open.
Body cameras captured the entire thing. Officers had begun to chat amongst themselves, waiting for their prey to come to them.
“We just wait for him to come out,” one officer said. “He’s just going to run out with his laptop.”
Another officer walked off camera, seemingly to approach the getaway driver. “You guys setting up a little theft scheme huh?” he said before asking for an ID.
“Come on, baby,” a third officer urged. “He’s coming through this way, right here.”
He couldn’t have been more right. Mere moments after uttering those words, the doors flew open and the two remaining perpetrators stood there.
Global News reported that they were 30 years old and 21 years old. And they were caught quite literally flat-footed, their hands full of $2,200 worth of merchandise.
Perhaps the funniest part was the police officers’ reactions. “Hey, that worked well,” one said while he restrained the perpetrators. Hope they don’t have to do any painting.
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