Two cowboy hats were taken from a passenger at the Sacramento airport on September 1, as they were enroute home from Burning Man. They were Stetson hats which can be hundreds of dollars each.
The passenger, Max Segura, posted an airport camera photo of the person they say did the crime. The police are not looking for the perpetrator – this is not a high priority crime to investigate.
In California, theft valued at under $950 is generally a misdemeanor as a result of 2014’s Proposition 2014. That’s still a crime, but isn’t going to get much attention most of the time.
That was a pretty bad decision, especially in the Bay Area, and voters regretted it. So in 2024 Proposition 36 passed allowing repeat offenses under $950 to be charged as felonies and letting prosecutors aggregate multiple thefts from different victims or jurisdictions to reach the $950 value threshold for a felony. But as a one-off, this isn’t super interesting to law enforcement.
So victim wants to find the woman in the footage, and – it seems – have the internet do mean things to her. Although it’s possible they could follow up with a lawsuit.
I’m not sure I’d rely on Facebook for this. The reach of TikTok seems better, plus videos are great for cross-posting to other platforms. If they have a photo of the hat, they might use Google Lens to see if that same hat is posted anywhere (such as an online marketplace for sale).
Crowd‑sourcing can generate leads, but those leads aren’t always… accurate. The internet may find her, but they also found Sunil Tripathi and declared him the Boston bomber.
So first I’d probably check with TSA and with airport lost and found?
What’s most interesting to me is that they gained access to airport security video. There are few places with more cameras than an airport! It’s something that airlines use all the time when they’re investigating incidents. It’s not only accessible to law enforcement. But it’s rarely something a passenger can get their hands on directly.
The peanut gallery has gone into full investigative mode, and declared that “the Hamburglar” – whose “picture you can smell” needs to “give back the hats, Karen.”
Should’ve been sombreros and mariachi in the background… seems to be ‘trending.’
There’s no way that woman was at Burning Man.
Damn, 1990 beat me to it.
Should use the hats to hide her face……..and I don’t mean from detection.
That’s a weird looking woman, Gary. She looks angry for someone who just stole hundreds of dollars from somebody.
@Michael Harrison: OMG
Youtubers find a way to obtain video. I would agree the police aren’t going to do much about the stolen cowboy hats.
@Thing 1 — It has been a ‘fun’ week so far…
Smf(h) at these theives…
liberals view thieves as victims of capitalism and the people they steal from as evil, rich capitalists. Theft will only get worse as more people realize theres no consequences to stealing and liberals view them as victims.
@Wesley — Nah, you can’t boogeyman you way into blaming perceived enemies for anything you don’t like. (Stub your toe… darn leftists!)
Most liberals merely want an expanded social safety, including affordable housing, healthcare, education, retirement, work and consumer protections. That doesn’t make them thieves at all.
Also, ‘thou shalt not steal’ should be clear to everyone, regardless of ideology. Now, try explaining that to a ‘libertarian’ who believes ‘taxation is theft…’ Yeah, both extremes are kinda silly. But, but… ‘sovereign citizen’! Psh.
I almost forgot to include the Jeb! meme of ‘please clap’… (anyone else remember that gem?)
Who cares! Did they steal your Swastikas too? A cowboy hat, Also know as a bigot bucket, is a symbol of hateful racist and ignorant brown people haters. I hope the hats were burned or turned into Porta Potties.
@poop scoop joop — …doop, loop, woop. Your ‘hot take’ is ‘all hat, no cattle,’ because a mere cowboy hat is not bigoted; there were and are black and brown cowboys, too, so, no, bucket hats are not the problem here. Nice try though… noop, gloop, yoop.
@Wesley. There are folks who push for no real enforcement of smaller $ crimes, no significant sentences for those arrested for theft, and are happy with a system that has the perpetrators home from the police station before their mugging victim is seen at the hospital. And, these folks will call themselves liberal/progressive. Desite others’ hand waving on this, the movement to a system that favors the criminals over the victims and the rest of society is found only among modern leftists.