A SPORTING CHANCE: While leaving the Temple Heights Apartments in Tampa, two men were intercepted from behind by a guy ordering them to drop to the ground. Since the dude giving the orders was wearing all black (including a black skull cap) and was carrying "a black semi-automatic handgun," the victims did as they were told. The suspect then robbed them of much of their clothing, including a jacket, a hat and a "Buffalo Bills throwback jersey #58 'Banks.'" As if being a Bills fan wasn't punishment enough...
BLOTTER SAT: The manager of Alpine Liquor in Tampa reported to police that a cashier had been spotted on the store's surveillance video swiping cash from the register. Per the report, the manager witnessed the cashier, "take money from three separate customers and put the money in the register, but deleted the sales which totaled $26.66." The cashier then took two cash bills, one "appearing to be a 20 and the other [appearing to be] a $1 bill, based on where she took them out of the register." At the end of the day, the register was $4 short. Explain, and please show your work.
BAG IT: An employee at the Goodwill store on W. Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa witnessed a pretty bold theft attempt. A woman entered the store carrying a "flat black pack," and made a beeline for the adult clothing section. The employee saw the suspect "carrying a large bundle of adult clothing in her arms as she ducted [sic] down behind a clothing rack." Mysteriously, when she reemerged from behind the rack a few seconds later, she had "no clothing in her arms ... but her flat back pack was now bulging in size." The defendant made no effort to pay for the items, avoiding the registers altogether on her way out the door to her parked pickup truck. The employee managed to stop the woman before she could escape, holding her until police arrived.
COOL CUSTOMERS: A Tampa man was awoken in the pre-dawn hours by the sound of a truck being driven into his backyard. At first, the man didn't think anything of it, as he was having a wall built around his home and was used to having construction workers going in and out of his yard. Soon, however, the homeowner heard two men conversing in Spanish followed by the noise of things being broken. The man grabbed his shotgun and switched on the lights, sending the trespassers scattering to their truck and peeling out of his yard. Upon inspection of his property, the man realized the "suspects had ripped the insides of the power box to his air conditioning unit out, and had attempted to cut the refrigeration lines to the unit in an effort to steal it."
From the files of the T.P.D.
