A man on a skateboard rolled up to a Girl Scout troop that was selling cookies outside a California grocery store Sunday and snatched their proceeds, totaling around $500, then skated away.
Police arrested Colin Sawyer, 20, on Monday after releasing a suspect photo and surveillance video from the Stater Bros store in Phelan in San Bernardino County. The cash was missing.
Girl Scout Troop 1303 had been selling their signature cookies all day and were packing up to go home when Sawyer reportedly approached the stand and grabbed the bag of money. One of the girls ran after him, but fell and scraped her arms and legs in the parking lot.
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"My sister leaned down — put the money down for a second. He quickly grabbed the money," Victoria, the scout who was working at the table, told
KABC, ABC's Los Angeles affiliate.
Sawyer could face a fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to six months in jail, according to KABC. The Girl Scout organization will reportedly reimburse the local troop's funds.
The incident was just the latest in a string of Girl Scout thefts. Last weekend, two separate stands were robbed in less than 24 hours in Tucson, Ariz.
First, a woman made off with $400 cash in front of a Fry's grocery store in what Girl Scout leaders thought was a premeditated crime.
"The car doors were open. The car was waiting for them," Meta Mota, a Girl Scout leader, told Tucson News Now. "Their license plate was masked. This was a planned opportunity."
In the second Arizona incident, a man got away with $200 he took from a cash box.
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Last month, thieves stole $19,000 worth of Girl Scout cookies from a warehouse in South Carolina. Police said more than 5,000 boxes of the popular cookies were taken from a storage unit.
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