Hilary Brown doesn't have her laptop back, but the victim of a brazen theft at an Atlanta coffee shop has some consolation.
Police said Friday that they apprehended one person in connection with the theft at Inman Perk Coffee on Highland Avenue.
Around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, a young man entered the coffee house in Inman Park and seemed to be looking for a place to sit among the 30 or 40 patrons who were sipping coffee and tapping on laptop computers.
Then, he snatched a white MacBook out from under Brown's typing fingers.
Before she could register what had happened, the thief was flying out the door. Her computer contained half a year's worth of her nursing school notes, and personal photographs.
"I was literally on my computer, like typing, and this guy just jerked it up from the table," Brown told the AJC a few hours after the theft.
She and a couple coffee shop countermen gave chase, but Brown said the thief hopped into a waiting gray Mercury Sable and sped off.
Yet police said they did capture one suspect that day. A juvenile was captured by an officer in a patrol car after Brown and the others gave up the chase, said Officer Kim Maggart of the Atlanta Police Department.
Given the lad's status as a minor, Maggart could not provide his age or other details about him. She couldn't even say what he was being charged with, but she did say he was being detained in a juvenile lockup.
There were apparently three people involved in the snatching -- a driver, the snatcher and someone to distract the coffee shop patrons. The other two remain on the lam. And, said Maggart, "the investigator said they have not recovered the laptop."
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