NEW YORK — Police in New York City are searching for a thief caught on camera smashing the window of a taxi cab with a cinder block, and stealing items from inside the car.
Police shared video of the crime on Twitter, showing a woman approaching with a large cinder block and climbing nearly all the way inside the car.
The incident happened around 10 a.m. March 24, after the taxi driver parked his vehicle in midtown Manhattan, WNBC reported. Approximately 15 minutes after the driver left to use the bathroom, the suspect was filmed stealing from the cab.
Police told WNBC the suspect stole $40 in cash and an iPhone before taking off. Video shows the suspect taking a wig off as she walks down the street.
When the driver came out, he was shocked to see what happened. “I thought someone hit my car with another car,” Augusto Quinde, the cab driver, told WABC. “It was a big mistake leaving the money and my cell phone. … She was passing by and she saw the money and she went crazy seeing it inside.”
The person who recorded the video, a FedEx driver named James Garcia, told WABC he tried to stop the suspect. “Before everything happened she was trying to break the window with a metal thing. At first I talked to her, ‘Wait, wait, don’t do it.’ She screamed to me, ‘Stop it, stop it. Stop snitching.’”
Police have not yet identified the person in the video.