Crazy Criminals

I work in and around Memphis. Unfortunately, Memphis does not have the best crime statistics. We are always on those lists the media puts out about the most dangerous places to live. The city of Memphis ended the year 2020 with over 330 homicides and 80 interstate shootings. I know the MPD are trying their best. They are so overwhelmed. I’m not trying to scare you, just trying to help you understand the situation. I love Memphis, for the most part. I’ve lived here or near here since 1980, when my dad got one of the very first jobs at Federal Express when they were first starting up.

There’s something you need to understand about Memphis. Like any major city, there are the good areas and there bad areas. Two of the high end, wealthier areas are called Midtown and East Memphis. Oddly enough, within these two places, there are good and bad sections and it’s all laid out so strangely. On one block, there will be million dollar homes. On the next block over, there are boarded up, dilapidated houses that I’m pretty certain serve as the local “drug” store, if you take my meaning. It’s like this all through Memphis.

In 2016, my office was located in a decent area in East Memphis. Two buildings down from us is one of the most expensive, nicest steakhouses in town…Folks Folly. I’ve never, personally, been. Too expensive for me! Anyway, It wasn’t a bad area, at least during the day. Like I mentioned before, I’m the general manager of a mosquito control business. We have what we call backpack blowers to dispense our chemical. Imagine a backpack-type leaf blower, but with a 4 gallon tank attached to the top to hold the chemical. (I’ll post a picture below.) These blowers run on a gas/2 cycle oil mixture. We couldn’t store them in the office overnight, because the gas fumes would overtake us in the mornings. From 2013 to 2016, we kept the blowers in the back of the trucks and the trucks were tucked away in the back behind the building. At this time, we didn’t have any recording security cameras. We just had a small real-time camera so we could see anyone approaching the back door while we were there during business hours. We had never had a problem before.

In a 3 week period in September of 2016, we had 8 blowers stolen….

Sometime in the early morning hours of September 8th, someone stole 3 of our backpack blowers. I didn’t even notice when I arrived to work that morning. I let myself into the office and got to work. Shortly thereafter, my applicators arrived to work. They came into my office asking where the blowers were. I looked at them like they were crazy. I asked “what do you mean where are the blowers? They should be in the trucks!” They said they weren’t, so we all headed outside to check it out. They were right. The blowers were gone! Vanished! There was no sign of what happened. UGH! Seriously?! What is someone going to do with these stupid backpack blowers?? Start up their own mosquito business?? This is ridiculous. Yes, these blowers are expensive. They run around $650-$700 a piece, brand new. But what confused me is they kind of have a specific use. What would your average thief do with a blower? (Stick around. I learned the answer to that!) I called the police. The Memphis police came out to take a report. They took down all the information we had, which was close to nothing. They took a couple of pictures of our trucks and another blower that wasn’t stolen. I asked why anyone would take these blowers and they said probably to pawn them. (This is one answer, but keep sticking around, there’s another answer to come and you won’t believe the reason!) After the police left, I had to go buy some new blowers. I also picked up some of the strongest, thickest bike cables so we could lock the blowers to the trucks.

A week later on September 14th, two more blowers were stolen. Apparently they came prepared with bolt cutters! I’m guessing they had come sometime during this past week and saw the bike locks. Again, I’m still not understanding why they want these stupid blowers. So I call the police again. Officer Giannini comes to take the report and dust for fingerprints. After that, it’s off to buy security cameras that record!

Another week later, September 22nd, another 2 blowers are stolen. WTH?!?! By now, all I could do was bust out laughing! I mean, what else could I do?? During this time, we buy a truck that has a topper with doors that lock. So we start putting the blowers in there at night. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. Everything could go wrong. But wait! I have security cameras! I have surveillance video!! Ha! Take that you sneaky bastard!! Christina (she works in the office with me) and I run to look at the video. We start watching and fast forward until we see something. All the sudden, we see a “gentleman” walk out of the darkness. He starts prowling around our parking lot. It’s clear he’s done this before. He’s looking in all the truck beds. He wanders over to our topper truck. He is able to break the lock and open the doors! He steals 2 blowers and walks off back into the darkness of the open field that is behind our lot. We continue watching the video just to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Much to our shock, a short time later, a couple of different guys stroll into our parking lot carrying bolt cutters!! Holy shit!! We have multiple thieves practically tripping over each other to steal our blowers!! Did a memo go out to all Memphis criminals to rob us?! Look. I understand the first time it was easy. Even the second time wasn’t brain surgery, but at least they had to make a second trip to get the bolt cutters. But dang!! This time we had the blowers locked up and we had clearly visible cameras! Good grief. Christina and I are standing in front of the monitor with our jaws dropped open in disbelief. Time to call the police…again. Officer Giannini is the lucky one to get the call, again. We show him our surveillance footage. He’s a bit shocked to see all the thieves coming and going, as well. He’s trying not to laugh. Finally, all 3 of us are dying laughing. Officer Giannini takes our report and dusts for fingerprints…again. He asks for a copy of the video. I told him I didn’t have a flash drive, but would go right now and buy one. He says no problem. He will have someone come pick it up later that afternoon. Perfect! Now maybe we can get somewhere! (Side note: I have my carry permit. I do carry.) Later that day, another MPD officer stops by to get the flash drive. I go to the back door to let her in. She follows me down the hall to my office. We get to my doorway and I stop short. She almost runs into me. There, sitting on my desk pretty as you please is my Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm gun. Shit! I immediately turn around with my hands up! “I’m sorry ma’am! I forgot to put my gun up before you got here. I PROMISE I have a permit!” She just laughs and says it’s fine. Oh thank God!! She takes the flash drive and leaves.

Apparently, three times a charm. Now that we’ve been robbed 3 times, MPD takes notice. They send 2 detectives to my office a few days later. They want to set up a “sting” to try to catch the thief. Of course, me and Christina being huge true crime fans, are like YES!! Let’s catch these guys! Detective McHottie (he was quite cute, lol) and his partner installed their own cameras all over the place. Then they hid a GPS tracker in one of our blowers and left it out in a truck bed. Sure enough, the next night, the same “gentleman” that stole 2 blowers out of the locked truck came back and stole the blower with the tracker!! We called the detectives and they came out to get the footage from their cameras. They would let us know when they found the blower. Another few days go by before we hear back from the detectives.

What had happen was…..

The thief took the blower, got on a MATA bus, and headed to his employer’s house. His employer, it turns out, is a pretty big drug dealer in Memphis. The drug dealer wanted the thief to wash his car on a regular basis to help pay his drug debt. The thief had gotten rid of the first 2 blowers, but he got to thinking. He thought the blower would be perfect to wash the car! Light bulb moment for the thief!! He can put soapy water in the blower’s tank, spray the car, rinse, then blow dry the car with the blower by not turning the tank on!! Work smarter, not harder!! Once he got the blower to the drug dealer’s house and the GPS showed it wasn’t moving from there, the police investigated the address and the resident. They got the necessary warrants, went in and busted everyone! It was a big drug bust. Lots of cash and drugs were found in the house. In the backyard shed was a ton of stolen lawn equipment, including my backpack blower!! YES!!! Score for the good guys!! The police didn’t bother the drug dealer with my blower. They had cash and drug charges for him. Fine by me! The blower thief was charged with 6 counts of Burglary of Motor Vehicle and 1 count of Theft of Property $1000-$10,000. He was found guilty. He served time. I can’t remember how much, but it wasn’t that long. He was also ordered to make reparations to us. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but we haven’t seen one red cent. Shocking, I know.

A few months later, we moved our office out of Memphis. We needed more space and we needed NOT to be robbed.

Want to hear something so ironic?? Not long after I started typing this blog yesterday morning, I received a call from one of my applicators. She was calling to tell me her blower was stolen out of the truck while she was walking the property of a customer. UGH! You can’t make this stuff up!!

Have you ever been the victim of a crazy, weird, funny crime?