Marion Editor's Corner: What Fifth-Degree Theft Looks Like

I turned off the ignition of my dying Chevy Malibu mid-Sunday afternoon after parking near  on Seventh Avenue and saw Jenny Yan Lin, co-owner of , scrambling out the restaurant door towards a small, red sedan.

From my windshield, I saw her clutching an object with both hands in the still-open driver’s side door.

She held on as the car accelerated out of the parking lot for several yards, resembling a water skier falling face down at high speed — her body flailing backward, bobbing up and down as her waist, legs and chin bounced off the pavement.

She finally let go and the car sped out of the parking lot and took a left, heading west on Seventh Avenue.

Right now, you might be wondering the same thing I was while I was sitting, dumbfounded, with my car keys clutched in my hands and my face frozen.

What happened?

This is the way Lin explained it to the police: One woman, around five-foot-six with dark brown hair down to her shoulders, was waiting at the counter while Lin was making crab rangoon filling at the back of the kitchen. 

Lin made her way to the counter before a taller, heavy set woman walked in slowly, allegedly stole money from the shop, put it in her purse and walked out alongside the brown haired woman and started their car.

Lin chased after them with the determination of an olympic sprinter, but despite her ambitious attempt, they started the car, drove away and Lin let go before sustaining even more serious skid-injuries.

So how much did these robbers make off with?

Seventy-five bucks, tops.

They took the cylindrical glass tip jar from the counter.

If the theft of the tip jar is all they ever get charged with, that is, if they are ever caught, they would be charged with fifth degree theft, a simple misdemeanor.

Every week, I log anywhere from 30 to 50 arrests in the Marion Police Blotter. Looking back to the blotters since Marion Patch launched in late October, the typically charges theft once or twice a week.

For me, the monotonous process of entering dozens of arrests makes me lose sight of the story behind each charge, each arrest. So now, I guess I know what theft looks like.

As I sat in the China King filling out a witness testimony, I knew I would be sitting in my home office, writing about this. Even then I couldn’t make sense of it — couldn't think of a clever take-away.

The closest I came to a conclusion was what the EMS responder said after a look at Lin’s bruises. After she exasperatingly explained the story for what seemed like the hundredth time, he said what many of us would say if we were cleaning up a coaster-sized bruise on an innocent woman’s hip.

"Some people," he said. "Some people are terrible people."

I won't leave you with that conclusion. Look forward to an update on this story on Marion Patch.