California Criminal Steals Goods and Tries to Sell Them Back to the Store Owner
This Week’s Wacky Wednesday: California Criminal Steals Goods and Tries to Sell Them Back to the Store Owner
Johnny Angel Robles (25), who is certainly no angel, seems to have a problem with the law. Almost immediately after being released from jail, he took it upon himself to steal hundreds of dollars worth of camera equipment from a business in California. While that’s bad enough, the part about this crime that takes the cake is that Robles then tried to sell the camera equipment back to the owner on the street.
How It Went Down
The camera shop owner was heading to his store when he was approached by Robles on the street. It was at that point that Robles tried to sell the items to the man without realizing that he owned the recently burgled store.
The owner, upon seeing what was trying to be sold to him, realized that it was goods from his store. Just to be sure, the owner went to his business and confirmed that it was indeed his equipment and that his place had been burglarized. Upon seeing this, he called the police and then went back to Robles’s location to try to detain him.
Robles got away briefly, though, and let the police on a foot chase. They soon ran him into an area that was fenced in and took him into custody.
Talk about bad luck for Robles. Out of all of the people to approach and try to sell the items to, it had to be the owner. Of course, given the man’s history, trouble with the law seems to come easily. He was already on probation for violence against the police and other violations related to drugs, theft, and resisting arrest. He appears to be a troubled individual.
Why Was He Released in the First Place?
So, you might be wondering why he was released from jail. At the time of this arrest in 2020, there was a zero-bail order in place in California. This was enacted because of the pandemic. They wanted to keep the jails are empty as possible, to reduce the risk of COVID transmission. This means a lot of people were back on the street, even though they would have still been serving time if there weren’t a pandemic.
The Riverside Police Department said that Robles faces charges of criminal burglary, as well as probation violations. All of those new troubles came mere days after that earlier release from jail. He was held on $10,000 bail. It’s not clear what happened with Robles after this, as there haven’t been any updates on the case.
Why Do a Lot of Criminals Continue Their Criminal Ways?
There’s not just one answer to this, as it will vary from one person to the next. Some people struggle with mental health issues, and substance abuse problems. Some are trying to overcome financial struggles while some don’t feel they have the tools or skills to do anything else. Unfortunately, there are also some who don’t see what they are doing as wrong, and they often think they can get away with these things.
Regardless, criminals often re-offend. Letting them out early may have been the right call for the pandemic, but it did put a lot more people on the street that went on to commit more crimes almost as soon as they got out, just as Robles did.