Leaving not a trace behind when you commit a crime isn’t always so easy. Especially if you happen to have loose court documents bearing your name on them while attempting to flee the scene. A man suspected of shoplifting was attempting to flee a Duane Reade store in New York City when an onlooker saw something flutter out of his bag and scooped it up. Well, what do we have here?

What cops had after the 79-year-old onlooker handed it over was a handy piece of identification.

“I knew there was some kind of shenanigans going on,”  the retired salesman and a grandfather of three told the New York Daily News. He had good reason to think so, as a man ran past him with a full laundry bag as a store employee yelled “Stop, thief!”

That’s when the piece of paper flew out and the man grabbed it.

“This was the dumbest thief ever invented,” he recalls.“Out falls this piece of paper and it’s a court document with his name and address on it.”

He went inside the store and asked if they’d been robbed. They had, indeed, and cops eventually arrested the alleged shoplifter and charged him with obstruction of governmental administration, possession of stolen property, petit larceny and resisting arrest.

Sounds like he’ll have some more court documents to paper the city with now.

Senior shows pluck, gumption and moxie in helping catch a thief on the upper East Side [New York Daily News]

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