The holiday season is a time for giving for most people, but it’s also a time for thieves to steal.
Police in one Cleveland neighborhood are looking for a person who is stealing packages from people’s porches just minutes after they are delivered.
The woman in the pictures below might be a package delivery driver or a building worker. However, cops in Cleveland’s Second District say she is a thief. People say she was wearing a yellow coat with what looked like the name Geauga Mechanical written on the back of it.
A neighbor who did not want to give her last name, Layla P., said, “Three packages were stolen. It was a day when packages were delivered by a different UPS person than our normal guy, and within three minutes of our packages being delivered, someone was following that UPS truck.“
LaLa lives on the west side of Cleveland, near Battery Park. She and a lot of her neighbors say that around December 5, packages that had been brought started going missing from their front porches.
“We were told that our packages had been delivered, but there was nothing there,” she said. “We looked at our camera and saw it within minutes. We didn’t see it happen; we just had to look at our camera to know it did.”
Police say the car that they think is the suspect is a silver Chevy Impala.
“I’m glad it’s not something illegal where they’re hurting someone.” It stinks and is annoying… “It kind of makes you feel unsafe, like your privacy is being invaded,” said victim Sam Husted.
There was a CEO of Geauga Mechanical who we talked to.
He tells Fox 8 that one of their cars was stolen from an employee’s home a few blocks away on September 17.
He said in a statement, “A few days later, the van was found in the Battery Park neighborhood, with most of its things stolen, including a safety vest.” We think that the suspect in the porch pirate case is wearing a sweater that was stolen from that van.
He goes on to say, “Unfortunately, theft from service vans and construction sites happens all the time.” Something that is often stolen is safety gear, tools, materials, and safety jackets.
Some of the neighbors say that Christmas gifts worth hundreds of dollars were stolen.
David Snyder, a neighbor, told Fox 8: “I’m surprised it happened to so many people because we usually watch out for each other and pick up parcels, bring them inside, and keep them safe.” You must have been trying very hard to steal a bunch of packages.
Others say they only had cheap things like vitamins and building supplies. Some people got their money back, but others still haven’t.
Police want anyone who might know anything about the case to get in touch with them.