Package Thief Redemption

Occurred on April 16, 2022 / Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Info from Licensor: "On the 15th of April, my partner and I both left for work for the day and were expecting a package to be delivered that day. I work with special needs children as a Registered Behavior Technician and she works as a registered nurse in a local hospital. We had not had issues with package theft before and we have a video doorbell so we were comfortable having the package delivered when no one was home to receive it. Around 2 o'clock that day, we both got a notification the package was picked up. As we checked the app for the video doorbell, we quickly realized the package had been stolen.

Upon reviewing the video when we got home that night, I played the video with the volume turned all the way up and hear the thief say "come on, come on, this way, back to my house!" We then realized the thief lived in the neighborhood so we decided to keep an eye out for him.

At about 8:30 the next morning, my partner witnessed the thief walking by the house a second time. We leashed our dog and proceeded to "take him for a walk." We followed the thief long enough to see which house he walked into and I walked up and rang the doorbell. He answered immediately and I confronted him about the stolen package and told him we have him on video taking the package. We walked home and to us, that was that.

About 10 minutes later, the doorbell rang and I looked at the video doorbell feed to see the kid standing on our front step with the package. I decided to take my time answering the doorbell and wrangle the dogs. When I answered the door he handed me the package and began apologizing. In the 20 minutes it took to walk home and him showing up, I decided it was not worth turning this child into the police. Instead, I decided to make this a learning opportunity. After he apologized, as is shown in the video, I shared the dangers of what he did and what could have happened if he were to have stolen the package off someone else's front step. He thanked me and left.