A fed-up New York City man set a trap, luring any potential porch pirates with fake parcels. It wasn’t long before one unsuspecting thief took the bait, and it didn’t end well for the sticky-fingered fool. But, luckily for us, it was all caught on video.
Carlos Mejia made headlines when he decided to take matters into his own hands after becoming fed up with porch pirates. According to the Queens homeowner, he was “done” with thieves after they had reportedly followed delivery trucks in hopes of locating and snatching other people’s packages, and he wasn’t alone.
According to the New Yorker, “plenty” of his neighbors were “tired of people just following the UPS, FedEx, USPS deliveries and taking everything we work hard for.” So, after Carlos’ parcels were raided right outside his front door, he decided enough was enough and hatched a plan to catch one of the local porch pirates in the act.
Using “decoy packages,” Carlos set his trap, intending to catch one of the bandits in the act and teach the thief a valuable lesson. So, after strategically placing the fake parcels outside his door, Carlos waited. Thankfully, his plan didn’t disappoint. Instead, his efforts were rewarded when a suspected porch pirate walked into his trap, trying to steal the packages from Carlos’ front stoop.
Unfortunately for the unsuspecting thief, the Queens homeowner was lying in wait — and it was all caught on video. Thanks to security camera footage, we get to witness the moment the alleged porch pirate laid his hands on the Queen homeowner’s property, prompting a burly Carlos Mejia to burst through the door with a baseball bat in his hand.
As Carlos’ security camera footage shows, a man enters the front gate, comes to the door, and attempts to take one of the deliberately placed faked parcels from the front steps. As the suspected thief puts a package in his backpack, Carlos storms out of the house, ready to confront the criminal while armed with a baseball bat.
The sight of the brawny, bat-wielding homeowner quickly made the suspected porch pirate reconsider his choices, as he quickly pulled the package back out of his bag and laid it back down. “What you got in there?” Carlos asked the thief, who brazenly launched the backpack at him, saying all of the items inside belonged to him but telling Carlos he “can have everything, bro.”
As Carlos Mejia threatens the thief with the baseball bat, the man, who had already dropped the package, also drops to his knees as he pleads with a visibly angry Carlos. “Oh, s–t, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, I just didn’t want nobody to take him, bro!” the terrified suspect exclaimed, according to the NY Post. The shaken suspect then repeatedly reassures Carlos that he lives on the corner, but the fed-up homeowner dismisses the man’s mutterings.
“I don’t give a f–k! Get on your knees,” Carlos ordered the man, detaining him with the help of his baseball bat until the thief reportedly tried to flee by scaling a fence. But the homeowner wasn’t about to let him get away. Instead, Carlos yanked the suspect to the ground, where he then held him until police arrived as the accused crook dramatically screamed that he needed an ambulance and moaned about his hand.
@lossmokes1
Police arrived at the property, and the suspect — later identified as 36-year-old Victor Stazzone — was arrested and charged with petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and criminal trespass, the New York Police Department told Storyful in a statement. “The report states that an individual did remove a box from the premises without permission or authority,” NYPD wrote.
As for Carlos Mejia, he later revealed that the decoy package contained a notecard that read, “Keep stealing our s–t and you wont [sic] make the next year b–ch a– f–king c–t!!” along with some old French fries. “I was just trying to make an example for those out there doing the same thing — stealing from others,” he said, and with the popularity of his video, I’d say he most certainly succeeded. So, let this be a lesson to the other porch pirates out there. When you decide to pillage and plunder innocent people, you might get more than you bargained for.
