Louisville comic store hopes to catch Thanksgiving thief with super humor
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - A Louisville comic shop is one of three small businesses victim to a Thanksgiving Day smash and grab.
The incident took place just before 2 a.m. Thursday. The owners of Pop’s Comics and Collectibles say they were woken up by a cell phone notification.
“Our phone went off, saying that our alarm system had gone off,” Heather Messmer said.
The store’s security cameras show a person smashing through the front door and jumping over the counter before attempting to break into an employees-only area.
“He tried to get in the back, he couldn’t get in the back, and he -- the alarms were going off and I guess it was slowing him down, so he just grabbed the register and took off,” the owner recounted.
She said the incident was frustrating for multiple reasons.
The Thanksgiving thief had not only caused them to spend the early hours of their holiday working with police, but it had almost certainly cost them more in damages than had been physically stolen from the register.
“The cash was about $200,” Messmer said. “The door, we’re still waiting on the bill because we had to have someone come out in the night on a holiday, so I’m sure that’s not going to be cheap.”
They aren’t the only victims.
LMPD confirmed two more robberies at local businesses in those early morning hours -- Comic World and Fat Rabbit Vintage.
Security video from Fat Rabbit shows what appears to be the same thief attempting to burglarize their store just before 5:15 a.m.
However, LMPD has not commented on the suspect’s identity, or whether they’ve been caught.
Pop’s Comics says they’re making light of their own situation where they can, especially because it’s not the first time they’ve been robbed.
“We got broken into a couple years ago, and the guy just stole a $15 pack of Pokémon cards,” Messmer recalled. “We’ve unfortunately learned how to handle situations like this.”
The store is now using this incident as material to promote their business on social media, with posts joking about “door-buster deals” throughout Black Friday weekend.
Messmer noted that taking the opportunity to call out the thief for what they did could lead to identifying who that person in the video is but any extra business they might receive from increased traffic online could also help them recoup some of the losses caused by those damages.
Additionally, the store’s staff said they’re finding joy in turning the criminal’s actions into the punchline of their jokes.
“We did another video of him, and telling him that we have his ‘doohickey’ -- it’s what we call what he broke in the door with,” the owner detailed.
In that same video, the store demands the robber return their cash register along with one of the personal belongings inside: a miniature Funko Pop figurine depicting Marvel’s Black Widow.
They said that part isn’t a joke.
“Fair trade. We will give him his ‘doohickey’ back, if he brings us our ‘Pocket Pop’ that was in our register,” Messmer said. “It’s just on principle.”
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