JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The owner of Fifi’s, a consignment apparel store, says he’s offering an award for information leading to an arrest after thousands of dollars worth of designer purses were stolen from his shop in San Marco.
Harry Mill said he’s offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. He sent News4Jax surveillance video that was taken from inside the store.
The video reveals a man wearing a red hat and yellow shirt looking around the store, walking to and from different clothing racks.
“You can see him back walking back and forth, constantly staring at the manager,” explained Mill. “Pretending like he was moving the clothes with his hands, but not looking at the clothing at all.”
Suddenly, he’s seen wearing what appears to be one of the bags around his neck.
“One of our employees handed him one of our very high-end $4,000 Louis Vuitton purses, and then he asked to see a second one, and my employee didn’t, unfortunately, get that first one back.”
Later in the video, two customers appear beside the main counter. The man begins grabbing items off the wall and dashes across the store, nearly knocking one of the customers over, grabbing additional items before leaving the store.
Mill noted that the man was limping badly on his left leg. He said a woman found one of the purses lying on the ground and brought it back.
The owner said the store has been open since 1998 and that this kind of thing doesn’t happen often.
“This is the first crash-and-dash I guess you can call it,” Mill said. “We’ve had things happen in the evening before at night at somebody will break the window and come in and take stuff out of there but never blatantly in front of the cameras with customers in the store -- there was three or four customers, one lady just about got pushed out of the way, a customer did, and he stared into and looked at every single camera I had mounted on the wall.”
Apart from that, Mill said, the man was wearing a t-shirt that had a bunny rabbit on it and said “lucky charm.”
He’s been keeping an eye on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist to see if his missing items turn up. If you know anything that can help, he hopes you’ll give him a call or contact authorities.
News4Jax has requested a copy of the police report from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.