Viral video of laptop being stolen from coffee shop leads to arrest of suspect
A viral YouTube video posted Saturday of a woman taking a laptop and from a San Francisco coffee shop the previous day has led to the arrest of a suspect.
Pawl Raynal, 32, was arrested in another Bay Area coffee shop on Monday afternoon, wearing the same blue-and-white-striped shirt seen in the YouTube video, after she was spotted by an employee who had seen the video, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate Blog. As of Tuesday, the video had been viewed more than 200,000 times.
Raynal told responding officers she was a victim of mistaken identity, but was booked on suspicion of burglary, possession of stolen property, false impersonation and a parole violation, the newspaper reports. The laptop, which was a MacBook Air, according to the video, had not been recovered at last report, and the victim of the theft, Ahryun Moon, says an iPhone also was taken, as the video appears to support.
Moon, a 29-year-old freelance developer, reportedly left the equipment unattended while she visited the restroom.
San Francisco Citizen and the Snitch page of SF Weekly also have stories.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Benefited by $30B in annual cellphone sales, industry opposes anti-theft measures, columnist says”