Alleged Porch Pirate Arrested After Cops See What He Wore to Court
A South Carolina man was arrested after he appeared in court wearing the shirt he’d worn the day before on surveillance video while allegedly stealing packages from front porches in a Goose Creek neighborhood.
The alleged “porch pirate,” whose name was not given, was first pointed out in a Facebook post Nov. 10 to the Goose Creek Resident Group and later to the city’s police department.
Police encountered the purported pirate in court the next day, and he turned himself in, according to WCIV-TV. He was dressed in an identical green shirt from the previous day, according to multiple reports. It wasn’t clear why the man was in the courtroom.
Goose Creek Police stated that a suspected porch pirate is in custody.
Authorities said he was wearing the same shirt as when he was seen on home security footage:https://t.co/BLu3473nmQ#scnews
— ABC News 4 (@ABCNews4) November 13, 2020
Goose Creek Police wrote on a Nov. 13 Facebook post that “sometimes people actually do make our job easy.”
“This guy decided to come into our courtroom the day after the first post was made and lucky for us he was even wearing the same shirt,” the police department said. “We are happy to say he is in custody.”
The Facebook post didn’t say why the man was in the courtroom and if his appearance was related to the stolen packages, according to WBTV.
The quest for the suspect started with a screen-shot warning post to the residents’ group, stating, “Beware of this porch pirate!”
Before he allegedly took a package from a female resident’s porch, the resident said the suspect tossed into her garbage can an empty Amazon envelope that had contained an item snatched from her neighbor.
She said she then watched the suspect on video as he crammed her looted merchandise into his backpack “with whatever else he had stolen in the neighborhood.”
His accomplice also was filmed riding a bicycle, according to the victim’s post.
This porch pirate case wasn’t the Goose Creek Police Department’s first. There was another publicized plundering there in December 2018. A Georgia female was arrested in connection with the incident.
The porch pirate suspect has been caught!
On Tuesday evening, December 11, Berkeley County deputies were patrolling…
Posted by Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Porch pirating has become a bigger phenomenon recently, with The New York Times reporting in December 2019 that 90,000 packages were being swiped daily in New York City, a 20 percent increase from 2015.
According to the Times, Denver experienced a 68 percent surge in package pirating between 2015 and 2019.
“About 15 percent of all deliveries in urban areas fail to reach customers on the first attempt because of package theft and other issues, like deliveries to the wrong house,” the Times wrote.
“In suburbs and rural areas, thieves often follow delivery trucks and snatch just-delivered packages from homes, often out of sight of neighbors.”
To help combat the issue, the Times reported vendors and shipping companies have made improvements to their package tracking practices.
A CBS News story from April reported a jump in front-door package looting, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, with the advent of the coronavirus and delivery drivers told by their companies to practice social distancing during the pandemic.
Police said delivery drivers who notice vehicles tailing them should change directions and dial 911.
The LAPD recommended consumers have packages delivered to their workplace or that they install a secure delivery box in their homes.
To also avoid porch pirates, the CBS story suggested individuals expecting packages may opt to “have them delivered to UPS or FedEx pick-up spots or Amazon lockers.”
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