I was visiting with my friends over at Big Sticks Fine Cigars on Friday night and was terribly disappointed to hear that they had recently been the victims of a theft.
It happened on Thursday, November 1st. They noticed a watch missing and went back to their surveillance videos to see where it went. What they found was appalling. The thief took a watch from the display case while the employee's back was turned, stuck it in his pocket, and continued to hang out in the shop and chit chat with the employee and another customer. Obviously the police were called, and fingerprints were taken. By Friday evening when I was in to visit there were pictures of the theif plastered all over the shop and a friend was working on getting the video posted on You Tube.
But it didn't stop there. Apparently on Saturday the thief came back again. But this time he brought a friend along to distract the employees. His friend asked to see a lighter and while the employee was turned around showing the lighter to the friend, he pockets another watch. Ooh this guy is really slick! The employees didn't know the guy had just taken another watch, but were a little concerned because the guy was acting suspicious and looked kind of like the guy in the first video. So as the thief and his friend were leaving, one of the employees followed them out of the store and watched them get into a faded white 1976, 1977 or 1978 short box, full size old Chevy/GMC work van; AZ license plate # 329-NFD. The police were again able to get fingerprints and the surveillance video is again posted on You Tube.
Channel 3 news will be reporting the story at 10pm tonight, and video of the news report should be posted on their website http://www.azfamily.com/ afterward.
UPDATE: Thanks to all the media coverage and publicity from the YouTube videos, the theif was caught! He confessed to stealing both watches and was booked on two counts of shoplifting and one count of trafficking stolen property. The tipster, who wishes to remain anonymous has generously donated half of the reward to the 100 Club, a non-profit that provides financial assistance to families of public safety officers and firefighters who are seriously injured or killed in the line-of-duty.
The owners know they will probably never get the watches back, but they would like to see the thief caught. More than anything I think they want to spread the word that local business owners like themselves have no tolerance for theft and will take action. Their use of YouTube to try to catch the thief has certainly gotten a lot of attention. The story was on Channel 15 News tonight. And there is also an article posted on the front page of AZCentral today.
Thanks for all the positive comments. You're right Matthew they are just a small locally owned business. But they are working hard to try to catch the thief. The story was picked up again last night by 2 additional local news stations Channel 5 and Channel 10. The media seems to be amazed that the owner has posted the surveillance videos on YouTube. So far the videos have been shown on at least 4 local news stations, linked to on the front page of the local news paper website, and there have been about 9000 views of the videos on YouTube.
More people than you would imagine. According to the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention "shoplifting has become one of the most prevalent crimes in the U.S., averaging about 550,000 incidents per day resulting in more than $13 billion worth of goods being stolen from retailers each year. That is more than $35 million in losses per day. Current estimates are as high as 1 in 11 Americans who shoplift in our nation today."
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What a great idea to use You Tube to help catch this guy. I hope they catch him.