This is just a real story that happened to my co-worker L. He remained surprised and excited even though he told us two times (he came in when people switched shifts, so he did it again for those who came later).
Sunday night, he went to McSorley’s Ale House with his friends. He also decided that it was the perfect time to wear his expensive-as-hell and extremely rare vintage jacket ($300 dollars, bought at a vintage pop-up store). At a point, he took off his jacket and went around to mingle. By the time he came back, the jacket was gone. Freaking out and pancicking, he asked the owner to check the CTV for footage. Here is what he found: a white guy came to the table, picked up the jacket, seemed to love it, and showed it to his friends. His friends sure gave compliments and boosted his confidence so much that he decided to walk out of the bar with L’s jacket and disappeared. So to this point, L saw the criminal and had clear evidence that his jacket was stolen by this guy. Additionally, the bar kept a record of all the customers’ IDs (sounded creepy, but it helped in this situation). However, the qualities were not good enough for L to match the ID photo with the footage… Now we might think that things are over since he bumped into a dead-end? Absolutely not, because L lucked out this time. In the footage, he also saw a black guy coming in the group, and at the bar that night, there was only one black guy, and that was 100% him. So L was able to take that evidence, locate the black guy’s ID, and somewhat guessed that white guy stealing his jacket to the best of his ability. He found out that this guy lives in Chester, PA – very far from Villanova and no way L was gonna drive there himself.
So, L reported this to the police. This was his first time ever doing so, so he had to consult Villanvoa pubsafe for advice. Guess what? Pubsafe told him to dial 911 and ask to get in touch with the local police. He did this 3 times. Right when he was about to give up, a man answered the phone in delightful voice (he told L that this was the first call that he ever received today). Then, L headed to the police station to show them all the evidence. The police assigned a detective to his case and told him to go home.
The day after, on his way to work, L received a call from the detective that he would be receiving his jacket the next day. The detective also let him know that the guy was fully denying it at first before giving to the police officer dead stares. It must be a traumatizing and humbling experience for the thief. L was expecting the jacket to arrive on Tuesday (if they are on time). He kept telling me that he couldn’t believe the police was so efficient and so quick on this case… just in complete awe. I bet after this incidence, L will never bring jackets to the bar again and will have more faith in the justice system!
Trang "Tee" Nguyen 