- After stealing her vehicle, that is, with something he wasn't expecting in the back.
When a thief stole a an SUV, he soon realized what he did and returned to the mom. He didn’t give the car back but he did give her the contents of the back seat, mainly her son.
“He actually lectured the mother for leaving the child in the car and threatened to call the police on her,” said Officer Matt Henderson, a spokesman for the Beaverton police.
The car was boosted just after 9:00 a.m. in the parking lot of Basics Meat Market. The mom decided to park just outside the entrance door so that she could run in for a gallon of milk and some meat.
She was never more than 15 feet from her car, but she left it open. And running.
“What she did was not a crime. She was within sight and sound of her child,” Henderson said. “But she left the car running, so take that extra step, take the keys with you. It’s a good reminder to take extra precaution when we have our little ones with us.”
Henderson calls the incident a crime of opportunity. With the car unlocked and running with keys, the thief saw the opportunity and he went for it.
An employee from Basics Meat Market who had helped the woman, said that she was only in the market for a few short minutes. Then the SUV was suddenly being backed out of its spot.
Just as quickly as they left the parking lot, the thief realized that there was a 4-year-old in a booster seat in the back seat of the vehicle. They pulled a U-turn in the Video Only parking lot adjacent to the market and returned to yell at the mother for leaving her child in the car.
“He orders her to take the kid out of the car, and she does,” Henderson said.
Then he drove away with the SUV, again. “Obviously, we’re thankful he brought the little one back and had the decency to do that,” Henderson said.
The stolen vehicle is a 2013 silver Honda Pilot, license plate 357 GLV. Police said the suspect would be in his 20s or 30s, with dark brown or black braided hair and was wearing a multi-color face mask at the time.