THE HEIST

Los Angeles County Courthouse

El Segundo, CA

December 19, 2001

OLYMPUS STYLUS 35MM CAMERA

GREG KINNEAR, 2000 through PHIL JACKSON, 2001

I was sitting on a cold slab of concrete they call a bench when the courtroom door opened and we filed in. Out of the kindness of my heart, I'd gone with a friend to keep him company while he waited for his chance to contest a parking ticket. Because I was anticipating an inordinate amount of downtime, I brought a magazine to keep me company.

After spending a valuable half-hour skimming over holiday home decorations, I realized that I’d forgotten my purse in the hall underneath the cold slab. It held everything. My ID, my credit cards, my house keys—but never mind that stuff, my camera was in there! I quietly panicked to myself and calmly walked out to the hallway.

Just outside the door, I could see that my purse was no longer where I’d left it. My beloved camera was in the hands of an unsafe stranger. I began a quick search for a law enforcement officer.

I found a security office where, to my dismay, every sheriff I talked to reinforced the belief that I was S-O-L.

“With all the thieves walking around in these halls? You're not getting that back,” one Sergeant said. I made a blanket request to anyone within earshot, “Can't you lock this place and do a shakedown?!!” They laughed. I guess not.

With all the cops walking around in these halls, I figured a masked bandit carrying a woman’s purse couldn’t get very far. Maybe he wasn’t so obvious, but luckily a few minutes after I filed a police report, my property was returned. It was found upstairs in the garbage can of the men’s bathroom. Eeeeew.

ID, credit cards, house keys? Check. No big surprise that my cash was missing and my sunglasses were gone, but so was my camera. Ultimately, the joke’s on them though because that camera was freshly loaded with a brand new roll of film. Haha, Suckers. That crook wasn’t able to make off with anything I valued like an irreplaceable picture of me snapped by a celebrity photographer. Sadly, that little camera carried a long list of valuable celebrity fingerprints, however. Now gone for good.

As it turned out, today's field trip to the courthouse was more action-packed than I had anticipated.