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IMPD arrests men walking down Meridian Street with 40 pounds of stolen beef

Posted at 3:49 PM, Jan 20, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-21 00:32:21-05

INDIANAPOLIS -- All it took was an unlocked door and a few moments for two men to load up and run off with dozens of pounds of beef from a downtown restaurant's cooler.

The theft happened around 10 a.m. Friday morning at Acapulco Joe's located at 30 W. Vermont Street.

Restaurant owner Grant Redmond said one of his employees stepped through the back door for a moment during the morning prep to run to the bank – accidentally leaving the door unlocked in the process.

Surveillance video captures two men entering the business a short time later, then briefly looking around before stealing four 10-pound tubes of ground beef.

Left to right: Robert Jerome Howard, 38, and Curtis Little, 52, were eventually arrested in connection with the theft.

"They came right in and they went straight to the ground beef locker, so they knew where it was," Redmond said. "They were walking down the street with it on their shoulder when they got stopped by police."

Redmond said each tube of beef costs about $40, making the thieves' heist wort about $160 in ground beef.

Their plan was thwarted by Acapulco Joe's waitress Jennifer Miller, who was sitting in her truck waiting to go into work when she saw the men exiting the building.

"I saw a couple of guys behind me … I didn't really think too much of it," she said. "Then I looked back and they were running across the street with a bunch of hamburger. So, I was like, this isn't right."

Miller called police, who caught up with the men walking down Meridian Street with the beef tubes slung over their shoulders.

The men, 38-year-old Robert Jerome Howard and 52-year-old Curtis Little, were arrested on preliminary charges of theft and shoplifting.

Redmond said that because the door was unlocked during business hours, the men couldn't be charged with breaking & entering.