POLICE INVESTIGATING THEFT OF ‘LARGE ABOUNT OF MONEY’ AT FREEMAN SHOPPING CENTER
One month after three individuals stole a Polaris Ranger from Saarie Auto Body — and were subsequently arrested and charged — the Freeman Police Department is once again investigating a theft, this time at the Freeman Shopping Center.
Freeman Police Chief Barron Nankivel told The Courier Thursday morning, July 24 that the incident occurred over the noon hour Tuesday afternoon, July 22, when surveillance cameras show that a man entered the office at the front of the Highway 81 grocery/hardware store and left with a large amount of money taken from a cash box.
“You can see him going through some of the desk drawers, and then he opened up a filing cabinet,” Nankivel said. “We saw he then grabbed a bunch of money (out of a cash box), stuffed it down his pants, put his shirt over it and managed to leave the shopping center through the Subway area.”
Nankivel said the suspect left the scene in an early-2010s-model red Ford Fusion with dealer plates and believes the individual is in the Yankton area.
“We’ve put many, many leads out there,” he said, noting he has posted the crime report through the South Dakota Fusion Center, which connects multiple agencies, and the incident has also been posted on Facebook by the Freeman Shopping Center, which of Thursday morning had been shared almost 300 times.
Nankivel said he has received a number of calls indicating a vehicle matching the description had been spotted around the lake area in Yankton, “but by the time I can get any units there, they’re gone.”
Nankivel also noted that law enforcement is hoping to work quickly in its investigation because of the large amount of money taken.
“There’s always a sense of urgency to catch criminals, but this was a large amount of money, ” he said. “We’re not talking petty theft here. That ups the urgency a little bit.”
If anybody has information on the theft they are being asked to contact the Freeman Shopping Center at 605-925-4781 or the Freeman Police Department at 605-925-7025.