Mobile police are asking the public for help identifying a woman caught on security footage stealing hundreds of dollars from a wallet an elderly man accidentally dropped in a busy parking lot.
According to police, the victim told officers he lost his wallet in the parking lot of a sporting goods store on Airport Boulevard around 4:20 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July. The wallet reportedly contained what a police spokesperson described only as a large sum of cash.
Security camera footage reviewed by investigators showed a two-door silver car pulling into the parking space where the man had just dropped his wallet. A woman got out of the vehicle, picked up the wallet, removed the cash inside, and then placed the emptied wallet back on the ground before driving off, according to police.
Investigators released images from the surveillance footage showing both the suspect and the silver vehicle associated with her in hopes that someone in the community would recognize either the woman or the car. Police said the suspect is wanted on a charge of second-degree theft of property, which under Alabama law applies to cases involving between $500 and $2,500 in stolen goods or cash.
Anyone with information about the woman’s identity was asked to contact the Mobile Police Department directly. Cases like this one, in which surveillance footage captures clear images of a suspect but investigators still need the public’s help to make an identification, are a regular reminder of how much local law enforcement relies on tips from residents to close out property crime cases.
The theft adds to a string of similar parking lot opportunistic crimes reported around the city’s retail corridors, where lost items, brief moments of inattention and a fast getaway can be enough for a would-be thief to strike before store employees or bystanders even notice anything happened.