Police: Thieves' Plan Falls Apart as They Walk Right into Officers' Trap with Arms Full of Stolen Goods
Christmas shopping in 2020 is looking a lot different than it did in 2018.
For most of us, that’s a bad thing. We never thought we’d miss the grim spectacle of purported civilized beings walking over one another trying to get a smart TV on Black Friday. Along with too-cold parking lots and too-hot stores, too many trips to the coffee shops, and too little parking.
Oh, for those days.
For three individuals charged in one of the more notorious Costco thefts of recent years, perhaps this could be a time to cool off a bit. Recenter themselves. Spend more time with family and less without lawyers.
Back in better days — specifically, March 14, 2018 — an unidentified 30-year-old man and 21-year-old woman thought they were getting away with the steal of a lifetime at their local Seattle bulk-goods store. Specifically, $2,200 worth of high-ticket items.
According to a news release from the Seattle Police Department, they received a call from Costco at about 5:30 p.m. as a shoplift was in progress. The store’s loss-prevention unit said members had noticed one of the individuals from a previous heist inside the store. Their modus operandi: Running out of the fire exit.
The video that resulted went viral:
When police arrived, according to the news release, they found an 18-year-old woman inside a black Toyota conveniently parked by the emergency doors. After boxing in the car, police started interviewing the woman.
“Don’t let her touch her phone,” one of the officers can be heard saying in the video, in reference to the woman in the car.
Meanwhile, the other Seattle police officers set up near the doors and heard someone try to open them from the inside.
“Just wait for him to come out,” one of the officers is heard saying. “He’s just going to run out with his laptop.”
It’s then that the alarm goes off.
“Come on, baby,” an officer says, pointing at the right door. “He’s coming this way here.”
And so he was. Within seconds, the two people leaving the store – a man and a woman — were arrested.
“Wow, that went down pretty easy,” one of the officers could be heard saying.
And indeed it did, probably a lot easier than if thieves hadn’t been surprised as they exited the door.
According to the news release, the male suspect had a 7-inch fixed blade on him at the time. Granted, it probably isn’t the time to pull that out when you’re surrounded by police, but you don’t want to contemplate the hypothetical here.
The grand total of what the suspects allegedly were trying to steal was $2,200 in computers and vacuums. (An interesting side note from having once worked in retail: You’d be surprised how often vacuums are targets for thefts, particularly Roomba-style vacuums or Dysons.)
Loss-prevention staff members at Costco told police they believed the thieves had stolen a similar amount of merchandise from another Costco earlier in the day.
The male suspect was booked into jail for investigation of robbery while the two women were booked for investigation of theft. Since then, the case has fallen out of view. Thefts aren’t terribly interesting unless you have a fun, viral video such as this.
It’s a sad state of affairs when individuals are doing this, of course. However, there’s a Keystone Crooks element to this that makes it almost endearing — even if theft, knives and bodycam footage seldom are a recipe for that.
And, after all, Seattle police officers were even having fun with it. The title of their news release: “Officers Arrest Costco Thieves in Bulk.”
We’ll just assume that crime didn’t pay for these three, no matter how this was adjudicated. In the meantime, one hopes that 2020 finds them well. At the very least, there won’t be as much temptation — or for that matter, opportunity — to pull this kind of thing this year.
Of course, for all we know, thieves are busy trying to steal Zoom memberships now.
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