You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The audacity of punk ass stupid.
There’s a point in life, where you have to ask yourself; am I crazy or just stupid?
I am talking about a thief , a common thief. He ostensibly makes his illicit living by answering Craig’s List ads, meeting people who want to sell smart phones, then driving away.
The man is a thief, that much is undisputed.
My question is, is he a thief who is stupid or bold, or both?
That’s the question I’ve been asking my self since I came across this lunatic.
Most crimes I cover once and move on.
This is one of those stories that keeps landing in my in-box.
I’ve covered this stupid-bold thief, not once, not twice, but three times.
This dope is playing a dangerous game of your life doesn’t matter and I’m a thug.
This moron shops on Craig’s list for people selling smart phones. He agrees to meet them and when they don’t expect it, he drives off with their property.
The 1st time I came across this thief, he grabbed the young man’s Galaxy 4 and drove away. The young victim jumped in the open car door and tried to hold on to the steering wheel. The victim got scraped on the parking lot before letting go.
Police executed a sting on the thief and arrested him. But he is sneaky evil. He pretended to be in respiratory distress. While at the hospital, he slipped off his cuffs and ran. A K-9 tracked him down after an hour of hiding in thick woods.
Amazingly, after all this, he bonded out.
You’d think he would lay low. Instead, he strikes again. I will find out about him after a woman emails me with this headline. “I just had my cell phone stolen by a man.”
She will go on to tell me that she was in a parking lot with her two young kids. She was showing her smart phone to the man who suddenly grabs it, and floors it out of the parking lot.
She claims she was almost run over.
She will tell me she Googled “I got my cell phone stolen in Nashville”
If ever there was a sentence you don’t want to Google; that’s it.
So what pops up? My story on the dummy dragging the kid across the parking lot. She said she looked at his mug shot and proclaimed “that’s the same man.”
She prosecuted and the thief was eventually arrested.
Amazingly, he bonds out again.
While out, he gets popped for some low-level misdemeanors and is re-arrested, taken back to jail.
End of story, right?
WRONG!
While being processed in jail, he lags behind the other inmates. Somehow he hits a button and gets into the Sally Port, the secured garage where police cars bring prisoners.
The problem is, the sally port door is broken, so the thief walks right into the street and disappears.
This is where my stupid or bold question comes into play.
4 days later he answers an ad to buy a smart phone and meets with a 25-year-old guy selling his sister’s Galaxy 4.
The phone owner feels uncomfortable talking the thief who is seated in his car, engine running.
The victim video tapes the exchange which shows the suspect looking at the phone and then flooring it, almost running over the victim’s foot.
The victim will tell me that he was frightened and could have been hurt. He will tell me that he is angry at police for not keeping this guy locked up.
I can understand his feelings.
What I can’t understand is the perp’s mentality.
He escapes from jail. You’d think he would want to lay low.
Nope! 3 days later he’s back to his old tricks, ripping people off?
Is the guy a drug addict and needs his fix? Is he mentally challenged and he doesn’t realize what he’s doing is dangerously wrong? Is he a thrill seeker and this is how he gets his jollies?
My job takes me to a lot of places and shows me a lot of things.
This one is interesting because of the repetitive nature of the crime.
As soon as the victim contacts me and sends me his Facebook footage, I recognized the thief.
Even I say “hey I know this guy? Why do I know this guy?”
Then I see his email and I say, Yep, it’s the same guy!”
As of this writing, the thief is still on the loose. He’s dangerous, willing to drag a man through a parking lot to get-a-way.
I hope nobody gets hurt.
While many people view Craig’s List as a place for good people to innocuously sell items to other good people. I also know it is a place where bad people lurk in the darkness pretending, waiting to prey on good unsuspecting folks who just want to sell their sister’s smart phone.
Be careful. It’s a jungle out there.
Life’s Crazy™