Yeah. If they put you out of jail with no money at all, I’m not sure what they expect you to do; though of course some people have resources at home that they can get to.
Nope, Newton MA (the namesake for the cookie) is in Middlesex County.
They likely arrested him based just on the description given to the dispatcher. The actual amount of money lost and the officer(s) seeing the surveillance footage could or would have happened later.
Some of the times that I’ve called people in, before the police actually talk to me, they’ll have already picked the person up based on my description. By the time they talk to me, I’ve got the surveillance footage cued up and whatever other info I think they’ll need.
That would probably only take a few minutes to figure out. I’ll bet the registers at a Walgreens have a running total of the amount of cash in the drawer. It’s just a matter of counting what’s still in the drawer and subtracting it from what’s supposed to be in there.
Years ago, before my store had registers that kept track of cash like that, we got held up. Even then, completely shaken up and with a bunch of cops over my shoulders, it only took me about 10 minutes to figure out how much was missing.
The guy walked around Newton for a couple of hours and after being bored, he decided he needed a way to get back in jail.
I doubt very much that food is what he was interested in.
Food, shelter, bus fare, drugs, don’t matter. None of that stuff is free and he doesn’t look like whoring material. Ergo: robbery.
And Newton Kansas is named after Newton MA.
Believe me when I tell you that it takes far less time than a couple of hours to get bored in Newton.
Is that like Toledo, Ohio? I spent a week there one day.
It was a Saturday night, correct?
… performing surgery?
I got bored just reading about it.
[Moderating]
Railer13, please don’t post copy right material verbatim, particularly unattributed. I’ve removed everything but the lead paragraph.
No warning issued.
[/Moderating]
Noted. My bad.
Newton, MA, was not named for the Physicist, or anyone else named Newton. It was originally Newtown and got shortened. I used to live there.
There is a surprising number of places whose names mean “new town” or “new city”. Naples, Carthage, Nablus…
This is pretty routine in retail these days. Where I work we can and have audited tills with no notice and yes, it takes about 5-10 minutes, most of which might be taken up by finding the portable gizmatchi that does the job (folks, will you PLEASE put it back in its nook and on the charger when you’re done with it? Thanks.)
On the other hand, if you release people from jail with absolutely no money I’m not sure exactly what you’re expecting to happen. That doesn’t make stealing OK but it does make it hella more likely. The stupid here is not entirely on the part of the recidivist.
He was discharged from a county detention center, which sounds like the equivalent of a county jail where people are generally incarcerated for relatively short periods. He probably wasn’t released after a 20-year sentence with no money and told to fend for himself.
That is exactly correct.
Decades ago when I had a summer job in a sandwich shop the manager found an incredibly bad counterfeit $10 in the register. The kid who’d accepted it 'fessed up, very embarrassed but was forgiven a little because we were in the middle of the dinner crush.
The cops were called and fifteen minutes later they showed up hauling in a guy in handcuffs – “That’s the guy!” I never heard particularly but I figured he’d been popped at another store and was already in custody.
I don’t have any direct knowledge but don’t you get your stuff back before they turn you loose? I’m thinking the opening minutes of The Blues Brothers here.
Did he have a home to go to, with food and water and heat in it?
If not, was there a shelter ready to take him, and if so did he know this?
How far was the county detention center from that home or shelter, if one was available, and did he have any way to get there that didn’t require him to have money?
– I mean, maybe he lived three blocks away and his family was waiting at the door to welcome him home. But maybe he lived twenty miles away, alone, and there was no food in the place and the heat had been turned off. Or maybe he had no place to go at all. I didn’t see any answers to this in the story.
AIUI part of the evidence against him was that he was found with the exact amount of money which had been stolen; which, if it’s to be actual evidence, would have to mean that he had no money on him at all before the theft. They may well have returned whatever he had with him when he was jailed, but that may not have included any money. Or possibly it did, but that had been confiscated, legally or otherwise.
Or maybe he was released with some cash – in which case, unless they can show that he’d spent all of it prior to stealing more, his being found with the exact amount stolen would have to be coincidence and would be more likely to be evidence of his innocence than of his guilt (unless they could show that he’d had a chance to spend or stash some of his supply.)