Tide rises on two heists in Montgomery County
|
Version 0 of 1. Call them the Tide thieves. Two men, in separate incidents, held up knives and stole Tide laundry detergent from two grocery stores in Montgomery County. And in one case, an employee tried to stop the thief by throwing mangoes at him. It wasn’t known if one of the mangoes hit him: The thief got away. One incident happened Sept. 17 around 10 p.m., at a Safeway store in the 5200 block of Randolph Road in the Rockville area. Police said a man pulled a knife on a store manager when the thief was confronted about stealing Tide pod laundry detergent. The man was last seen fleeing on foot toward the area of Parklawn Drive. But he may not have made a clean getaway. A surveillance video shows the man heading for the door and another person — later identified as a store employee — throwing mangoes at him. “The employee told him to stop, and he didn’t, so the employee picked up what was handy and started chucking them at him,” said Capt. Paul Starks, a spokesman with Montgomery County Police. Police also have a photo from a cellphone purportedly showing the thief: a black man wearing glasses, a yellow shirt, khaki pants and a black backpack. He is thought to be in his 40s, standing about 6-feet tall and weighing about 200 pounds. He is bald and has a goatee. The other Tide heist was on Sept. 15, around 8:30 p.m. Police said a man pulled a roughly 8- to 10-inch-long knife on a store employee who confronted him at a Giant in the 2900 block of University Boulevard West in Wheaton. The thief in that case stole about $100 worth of Tide, according to police. On Wednesday, after his picture was released by police, and they received some tips, the man believed to be involved in the Sept. 15 incident turned himself in to authorities. Mario Wells is charged with armed robbery and first-degree assault. The two incidents are not believed to be related. Why steal Tide? “It’s non-traceable,” said Officer Rick Goodale, a spokesman with the police department. “They’ll turn around and sell it right away on the street or at a pawn shop — if it hasn’t been opened.” Goodale said stealing laundry detergent isn’t something new, but he noted that sometimes police see a “big influx in it, and then it will go away.” Laundry detergent or personal hygiene items like toothpaste or teeth whitening strips are hot items to steal, Goodale said, because “they have value on the street.” “It’s stuff that’s innocuous,” he said. “If you stop a guy, and he’s got three bottles of Tide in the back seat, that’s not going to raise a whole lot of attention like having a bunch of cellphones or DVDs would.” Goodale said, “You may just think he’s got really dirty clothes.” |