Thievery on the Southwest Chief

I am en route from California to Michigan via Amtrak. An avid train rider I am used to the delays encountered on riding the Pere Marquette from Chicago to Holland. One could bet that train will be late for any number of reasons. My favorite was the time we clipped the tail end of a garbage truck. Heading back the day after Christmas, I had to call my boss to let him know I was going to be late while we waited for the trash to be taken of the tracks.

The Southwest Chief, Train Number Four, is running right on time despite the 20 minutes we spent last night filling a police report in Needles, California. Around 12:45 AM I went to the bathroom; upon return to my seat I saw a young man scanning the overhead bins with the light of his cell phone. I looked down to discover my laptop was missing. As I passed from car 13 to car 12 I found two more individuals who were missing items. A woman then informed me that she saw the punk riffling through her bag as well as investigating my red bag (my ultra heavy cooler).

We headed from car 12 to car 11 to car 10 looking for an Amtrak employ. We locate two sitting in the employee quarters in car 1.

“There is a thief on the train.”

“How do you know?”

“He stole my backpack with my laptop, my girlfriends camera and her—pointing to me--laptop. He has been walking back and forth all night.”

“I don’t know what we can do about it?”

“Find him and ask him questions.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“The kid with all the tattoos.

“And piercings?”

“Yes, that is him.”

“He is getting off at the Needles stop. That is in ten minutes. The best we can do is to watch and see what he takes off the train with him.”

I might want to mention that one of the kids who was with me, a 19-year-old, apologized for bothering them.

Taking matters into our own hands we set out to search high and low for our missing items.*



I went back to ask the staff to turn the lights on so we could look, they declined as to not wake up all the passengers. My retort, “I know this does not happen often but you are not handling this sufficiently.

I pass the suspect who stops me and says, “Did someone steal something from you because someone stole my laptop and my camera and they think I did it.”

“You have been wondering up and down the train all night.”

By this time another passenger is missing his video camera and laptop.

I head back through the train. The conductors have located a few of the items but not my laptop. I follow one of the Amtrak “police” and the perp to the bathroom. He opens his hard cased mustard yellow suitcase and I see it. I see my laptop.

“There it is.”

He maneuvers his belongings to hide it.

“Your laptop is not in my bag.”

“It is under your clothes.”

The conductor leans down and hands me my computer and I look him in the eye and say, “You are a Mother Fucker.”

Mr. Amtrak adds, “You are in big trouble.”

The train arrives to Needles and the delinquent runs to his Grandma, “They are saying I stole things but I am being framed.” To us, “I swear on my brother’s life…on my dead cousin’s life. I didn’t do this. You gotta believe me.”

One girl cannot find her camera so we ask him to open his suitcase again. He opens the suitcase. After five minutes, WHILE WE ARE WAITING FOR THE COPS, he and his Grandma start walking off. We follow.

His Grandma turns around, “There isn’t anything in his bag.”

Ok, so that statement is telling. If she thought he was innocent she would have said, “My grandson is not a thief.” Basically she is saying, “You cannot prove anything.”

Luckily, Needles finest arrived at that moment.

I need to interrupt this story to tell you about the crowd at the Needles Train Depot at 1:00 AM. One word, COPS. I wanted to ask Needles Finest if they filmed COPS here.

Also, a word about Jessie James. He was wearing a slightly slanted “Yo” hat and we think uses either Crystal Meth or Heroin.

The officer gets out of his car when dickwad says, “There were two black dudes going up and down the aisle, maybe they framed me.” Oh, yeah blame it on the African Americans, douche bag.

Grandma pipes in, again, “He doesn’t have anything in his bag.”

The police sent us away put him in the car and took are reports.

This is actually the reader’s digest version of the story.

Happily, after the last camera was dug out of the bathroom trash, all items are returned in to the proper owners.

*I was smart enough to buy traveler's insurance.