Florida Burglars Called 911 for Help Moving Stolen Goods After Breaking Into a Home, Deputies Say
They were trying to get a ride to the airport.
Burglars in Florida got a little confused about their task at hand this week when they called 911 for help moving items they'd stolen after breaking into a home. Authorities say two people in Polk County gained access to a home, took some items, and couldn't move them all, so one of them called 911 for help.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office said someone called 911 from a home in Poinciana, about 35 miles south of Orlando, but didn't say anything. Read on to find out what happened next, what the police said about it, and what's in store for the captured couple.
After receiving the call, police officers went to check on the home. They found a man and woman inside. Neither of them lived there, and they had gotten in via an unlocked door, deputies said. It turns out police had already been searching for the male half of the couple. Security video captured him burglarizing a Dollar General store in Poinciana, Florida, earlier that day, where several items were stolen.
The man and woman were taken into custody and questioned. At that point, the woman admitted to calling 911. "She called 911 for the purpose of having law enforcement assist (them) with moving their belongings from the house (the one they were burglarizing)," the sheriff's office told WFLA. "And they were trying to get a ride to the airport, because they wanted to go to New York for the weekend."
"Deputies DID help them with their belongings, and DID give them a ride, but it wasn't to the airport … it was to the Polk Pokey," the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post. "And they are welcome to stay there all weekend long. The Polk Pokey is much better than New York anyway." According to the sheriff's office, the man was arrested and charged with burglary of a residence, in addition to burglary and theft in connection to the dollar store burglary.
The woman was arrested and charged with burglary of a residence. In another Facebook post, officials used their creative skills to paint a better picture of the incident in the form of a comic strip.
That wasn't the only unusual robbery in Florida recently. This week, local media reported that a film producer—one who'd spent 19 years in jail for bank robbery–robbed an Orlando bank to cover production costs of filming in the state.
On Jan. 5, Nacoe Ray Brown pleaded guilty to bank robbery and violating the terms of his supervised release, authorities said. Brown was convicted of robbing three Baltimore banks in 2001. He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison and was granted an early release in 2020.
On June 28, 2022, Brown robbed a credit union in the Orlando area. Wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a mask, he passed a note to a teller claiming he had a gun and demanding money. After the teller gave Brown $4,296, he fled the bank and entered a nearby gas station where he had a change of clothes waiting. An eyewitness called the police and later identified Brown.
After his arrest, Brown told authorities he robbed the bank because he was filming a movie in Florida and had run out of money to pay for production. His sentence is pending.
