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Buffalo Police: Hugging Bandit at it again
Posted by:
Jessica Weinstein, reporter
Created: 2/22/2007 5:16:30 PM
Updated: 2/22/2007 6:37:19 PM
She walks the streets near bars, and police say, she's a pick-pocket.
Her method? A hug. That's why Buffalo Police call her "the hugging bandit."
"She obviously targets very intoxicated young males and walks up and gives them a hug, and before anyone knows it, the wallets gone," said Buffalo Police Detective Sergeant Tom Donovan.
Mike Cheney believes he's the bandit's latest target.
"I didn't feel nothing. Nothing! She's good," he said.
Cheney says early Sunday morning, he was walking along Pearl Street after having a few drinks. He says a large African American woman stopped him. He says she propositioned him, and he declined.
"She just came up, put her arms around me. She was big, like six feet tall. Probably 200-250 pounds, and she just came up and hugged me and I didn't realize what she was doing," said Cheney.
It wasn't until Cheney went to an ATM that he discovered his wallet was missing, along with two bank cards and his license.
"Usually within the first hour, she'll use the cards," said Detective Donovan.
The hugging bandit is no stranger to Buffalo Police. They've arrested her 17 times during the past nine years. Donovan says it's not a crime to hug, it is a crime to jostle. In the past, she's been arrested on that charge too.
"A person is guilty of jostling when he intentionally or unnecessarily one places his hand in the proximity of person's pocket," said Donovan reading the definition of that crime.
So far, Buffalo Police can't connect the hugging bandit to Mike Cheney's pockets. They have done a lineup, but he couldn't pick her out.
Buffalo Police say Mike Cheney's bank cards were used at a gas station a few hours after the theft. They're hoping surveillance tapes there may help them link the hugging bandit to the crime.
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