Tackling Theft, One Package Thief At A Time

No Nanny Poppins here. More like “Nanny popped ‘im,” or actually, in this case, popped her.

The news came this week from Everett, Washington, where one brave nanny did her part to stop package theft, taking matters into her own hands — literally.

As reported by kiro7, Kate Anderson, who nannies a one-year-old, saw her employer’s household receiving an Amazon package one morning not long ago. The home’s Ring surveillance video home monitoring system shows a car drove up 10 minutes after the delivery. A woman got out of the car and, well, made a move for the Amazon package — as in, taking what was not hers. In fact, the package contained items that were for the one-year-old in Anderson’s care.

“I saw her bending and picking it up — and they get a lot of packages — and I knew,” Anderson said. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s taking that,’ so I just took off after her, to be honest.”

The would-be thief got stranded when she fell out of the moving car onto the driveway. Anderson gave chase and eventually tackling the perpetrator, with expletives captured by the video. She held fast and shouted for passersby for help, saying, “Call the police, she just stole something from my house!”

Within minutes, the sheriff’s office arrived and arrested the suspect, identified as Rhieanna Schindler of Everett. Schindler had outstanding warrants for theft and drug possession, and has a record spanning 20 arrests.

Anderson is quoted as stating she’d behave the same way if she were she faced with the same porch theft incident again.

“I didn’t ever feel like she was a threat to me,” Anderson said. “So, I think I would’ve handled it the same way, yes, because it’s just not OK to go around doing that. It’s so not OK with me.”

Porch theft might be seen as the smash and grab of suburbia, as PYMNTS noted in recent months. According to estimations by Shorr Packaging, 31 percent of shoppers have been victims of package theft so far.