First: I apologize for the thread title, condensing questions isn’t my strong point.
I saw the following situation on COPS today: Guy #1 goes into restaurant with buddy, runs up $358 bill. At the end of the night, the waiter/waitress brings him the bill. Guy #1 puts in $3 and both men bolt as soon as the wait-person looks at the singles.
Manager et al chase down guy #1, guy #2 gets away. Cops come. Eventually they charge Mr. #1 with grand larceny (because the defining line between petty and grand larceny is apparently $250 in this jurisdiction) and burglary.
Here is the question: Why burglary? If I heard correctly, the cop claimed it was because he entered the restaurant without enough money to cover the bill he intended to incur. I see several problems here. First, how do they know how much of a bill he intended to run up? Second, how do they know that guy #2 didn’t have enough money to cover the intended bill when they walked in? Third, and most importantly, how can they charge him with that when he had a credit card (which they showed on air)???
I know that the cop isn’t the one who would file the charges, and the DA may laugh the burglary charge straight into the trashcan, but would this hold up? Anywhere? It seems ridiculous… I can’t possibly carry enough cash to cover any bill I may run up. Was the cop just trying to sound like a hardass, or am I missing something?
ETA: I’m not trying to defend the guy, obviously he was planning a dine-and-dash, but I’m more than a bit skeptical of the burglary claim here.