A robber received a quick dose of karma when his truck was stolen while he tried to steal from a Verizon store. On June 25, 29-year-old Jalen Godard initially called police claiming that his car had disappeared, according to bodycam footage released by the Howard County Police Department in Maryland. But the officer had just received a call about a burglary from the cell phone store nearby and quickly connected the dots.
Robber tries to trick officers by saying he was at McDonald’s
Officer Buchanan responded to a stolen vehicle report at 5:44 a.m. from a man standing next to a 7-Eleven claiming that his truck had been robbed, according to a Facebook post from the HCPD and KHOU 11. Godard says he was at McDonald’s when the theft occurred.
But only a few minutes before the call, the officer had responded to a burglary from a Verizon store across the street. A dark window had been smashed in, and that’s when the officer noticed that something was off about Godard. Taking a closer look, Buchanan asked the man to show his hands and quickly cuffed him while he played dumb and asked why they were arresting him.
“Because you got blood on your hands and blood on your glasses,” an officer says. There was allegedly blood on his black hoodie too.
When asked whether he was at the Verizon store, Godard denied it repeatedly, “I wasn’t at no Verizon store, sir. I promise to God … I wasn’t at no Verizon store, man.”
But the video reveals additional footage from cameras inside the Verizon store showing a man with glasses racing through the storefront, taking items off the rack, and squeezing through a storage rack.
When Godard says he wasn’t lying about his truck being stolen, the officer responds, “That’s kind of some karma right there, ain’t it?”
The man admits that he left the keys inside his car, but the officer continues to laugh about karma before Godard is hauled into the police car.
A bulletin from the Howard County Police Department states that Godard is from Odenton and has been charged with burglary, theft, and destruction of property. He is suspected of entering the Verizon Wireless store by breaking a window and stealing a set of speakers.
It’s unclear if the stolen truck was recovered.
