Seattle police are looking for a man who stole more than $600 from three Girl Scouts selling cookies.
Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, a police spokesman, said the man snatched the girls' money bin shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday as they were hawking their S'mores, Thin Mints and other delectables outside a QFC grocery in North Seattle. The man ran off, but not before he was recorded on security video.
Jennifer Johanson, one of two adults who was helping to supervise the cookie stand, told NBC affiliate KING that she wished she'd heeded her suspicions about the man, who she said stopped by a number of times asking about the cookies. He even bought some, which he later returned, Johanson said.
"There was just something not right," Johnson said. Then, just as the girls were shutting up shop for the night, the man returned again, pushed past one of the girls and grabbed the money, she said.
"It was freezing," Johanson said. "Why would someone steal from super-cold Girl Scouts?"
Johanson said she didn't want to frighten the girls, but "I do want to them to learn to be aware — more aware than I was, apparently, especially because I have two girls. I want them to learn to trust that feeling that they have."
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But there was a bright side, she said. The scouts have gotten donations from several people who heard about what happened — and "at least they earned their urban living badge, you know?"
Girl Scouts can be a tempting target for thieves. Last weekend's theft came only a month and a half after someone jumped out of a car in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas and made off with a wagon filled with $250 worth of Girl Scout cookies.