BPD D-14 Officers Nab Debit Card Thiefs

In what sounds like an episode of a TV crime investigation show (sans murder), detectives in the Boston Police Department D-14 station have caught two people who, allegedly, stole an 82-year-old woman's ATM/debit card at the AJ Wright store and then proceeded to clean out her bank account. One of the accused is a cashier in the store, and didn't return the card at the end of the checkout. Detectives seemed to have amassed extensive video surveillance evidence:

Around 10:30am on Friday, the victim alerted officers at the front desk of District 14 that her ATM credit card had been stolen and all her savings spent. This was particularly disturbing to officers because the victim is 82 years old and legally blind and had to be assisted by a friend to come to the station.

A district detective was notified regarding this incident and later met with the victim and her friend. The victim reported that her ATM credit card had been used at two different locations nearly depleting all the funds that she had in the bank. Officers subsequently learned of a theft of a credit card that had been captured on close circuit TV by Loss Prevention at the AJ Wright Store located at 60 Everett St. in Brighton and responded there to view the video. There, officers viewed a video of the victim making a purchase and suspect, Smith failing to return her card to her and later passing it off to suspect, King. Officers then responded to the locations that the victim’s card had been used and saw video of suspect, King making purchases using victim’s ATM card.

Based on the information attained, officers then returned to AJ Wright store and in cooperation with store Loss Prevention personnel found out what time suspect, Smith was getting out of work, and also learned that suspect, King usually picked her up. At approximately 10:40pm, officers placed both suspects under arrest when for the above noted charges when suspect arrived at the store to pick up suspect, Smith.

Upon arrest, at no time did the suspects give the peace sign and state, "I'm from Compton." (Follow link to bottom of page...)

One of the suspects allegedly bought groceries, then a pair of sneakers -- and then the sneakers were stolen from him.


EDIT (12/4/07): The Boston Globe ran the story on the front of their City/Region section. Arniya Smith, he AJ Wright employee -- former employee now -- who allegedly lifted the debit card apparently has several outstanding warrants and is being held on $10,000 bail. No word on why TJX, who owns AJ Wright, would hire someone with outstanding warrants and then put the person at the register.