Well, today I finally had an interesting day.
It all started out nicely enough, when two little girls came up and asked me where the bathroom was. I pointed over my shoulder and grunted “Go to the linoleum, back of the store, under the exit sign” and got back to my paperwork. A few minutes later, I hear the fire alarm go off. My boss takes off for the emergency exit as I glance up and see the two little girls standing by the door, looking confused. Apparently, they opened the door under the wrong emergency exit.
Suddenly, my manager Jim tears by. I holler something about it just being two lost girls, but he ignores me and continues on his way. About now, I walk up to the front of the store for a flatbed cart.
I see two cop cars pull up. Then two more.
My coworker Zach comes over and asks if the cops are here yet. Not knowing what’s going on, I motion to the parking lot. Jim comes over, and asks Zach if he’s seen the cops. Zach motions to the parking lot.
As I stand there, watching, enthralled and confused, Margaret, a senior in Ops, comes over and says something about “The rumors are flying!” Jim says something about “Well, that’s what happens, I guess.” I throw out a comment about a pedophilic child porn gang from Africa. Jim smiles, and says he doubts if that’s true.
I go back and finish what I was doing.
Eventually, still not knowing what’s going on and too busy to ask, I go back up front to watch the commotion some more. Now we have six cops, three men in handcuffs, a woman in handcuffs, and the two little girls, all sitting in the back of patrol cars. THE boss-man, three cops, and two Loss Prevention guys are out rifling through the back of an Escort station wagon. One of the Loss Prevention guys walks in with a guy wearing Circuit City manager duds.
Finally, the picture begins to come together. Three men and the woman came into the store about an hour and a half ago, with the two little girls. They sent the girls off to set off the fire alarm, while the adults went over to Appliances. While the alarm was going off, the woman wrote a check for about $1000 of Appliance merchandise.
The check went through EquiFax or whatever it’s called, but the address on the pre-printed checks didn’t match the address on the driver’s license she presented. The guy checking them out called LP, and the LP guy put them on camera. He recognized two of the guys from Monday, when they had had the same problem. He called the police and had Zach stall them.
The police showed up and searched the woman. She had multiple IDs, and eight SS#s on her, and the guys had lots of stolen checks and credit cards and stuff on them. The cops then went out and searched their vehicle.
In the vehicle, the cops found merchandise from Circuit City, so LP called Circuit City across the street, and the manager came over to identify the suspects. Apparently, the suspects had TRIED to purchase stuff from Circuit City, but when the check didn’t go through, they ripped the reciept from the printer, grabbed the goods, and took off, and came directly over here.
They also found marijuana, and, if I believe the rumors, an assortment of other odd drugs, like Crack, Cocaine, Meth, and X. In the trunk was also a bunch of clothes from Dillards with the anti-theft tags on, but butchered, and the hangers still in them.
SOOOO, they arrested the lot of them and towed the car to impound for evidence. They took statements from Zach, Jim, Darnell (LP), the CC manager, and everyone else involved.
Oh, and the rumors were true. One of the guys was a convicted murderer who had just gotten out of jail, and the rest of them were convicted drug runners on parole.
They had hit almost all the electronics stores in the area in the last week. The cops said that they were likely the bottom rungs on a huge check/credit card fraud ring.
Exciting day, no?
–Tim
[Edited by TubaDiva on 07-06-2000 at 08:56 AM]
Just kidding, but I was really tempted to do it.