Preteens Steal Prepaid Cell Phones from Best Buy

Two girls, only 12 and 13 years old, were cited for theft after stealing prepaid cell phones from in Fox Point.

The girls, one from Fox Point and one from Bayside, were at Best Buy on June 26 at 5:24 p.m. when store security recognized them from surveillance footage of a theft the previous week.

interviewed the Asset Protection Specialist who identified the girls on camera. He recognized them after reviewing footage of them from June 22 when they took prepaid cell phones, still in the packaging, into the bathrooms and snuck them out of the store. The packaging was later found by maintenance staff with the phones missing. Footage from the first theft showed the two girls entering the bathroom with the packaged phones and leaving without any merchandise.

Fox Point officers approached the two girls in Best Buy and walked them to the store security office.

Officers asked if the girls knew why police were talking to them, and one said, “Because we took something from here.”

They asked her what they took, and she said they each took a phone from the store a few weeks ago without paying for it. She provided police with three empty merchandise packages, all damaged from being ripped or cut open. Both phones were Samsung prepaid phones, valued at $29.95 each.

When asked if they had the stolen phones with them, one girl reached into her purse and pulled out the phone, although it had been damaged because she painted it with fingernail polish. The other girl did not have the other stolen phone with her, but agreed to return it to officers that evening.

Both girls were issued retail theft citations. At 7 p.m. that evening, the other girl and her mother returned the second phone to Fox Point police. It too had been decorated with fingernail polish as well, but was wiped up with polish remover.