Thief Tries To Rob Bank Using A Stolen Kitten

This criminal is a dumb criminal, but he does deserve some flowers for his creativity.

A man grabbed a kitten from the adoption area of a Maryland pet store, then allegedly tried to use her to rob a nearby bank.

Security camera footage shows a man wearing a light-colored t-shirt and black beanie walked into a Pet Supplies Plus on Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville, Maryland. Seconds later, he's on his way out the door, running, with a black and white kitten.

Witnesses said they watched him continue to run across the parking lot to the PNC Bank in the same shopping center.

short-fur black and white cat on white mattress

Stephanie Stullich of Beltsville Community Cats Rescue was nearby already when she received a phone call from a panicked employee at the store. They said someone used a key hanging near the kitten enclosure to open the adoption area and steal the cat, 3-month-old Magnolia.

Stullich drove over immediately.

“Immediately saw all of these police cars, and I thought, ‘Wow, that's a heck of a response for a stolen cat,’ but then I realized they all were going down to the bank,” she told NBC Washington. "They came back out a few minutes later and said, ‘Yes, there is a cat inside the bank.’ Apparently he went into the bank with the cat in his arms, and he walked up to a bank employee and said, ‘Can you hold this?’ And then he wrote a note and handed it to a bank teller and it said, essentially, give me all your cash.”

Prince George County Police took the guy into custody at the bank. Employees at the pet store said he'd been coming in almost every day for a couple of weeks, always going straight ot the kitten.

“Came in and saw that none of my team was nearby the front, and he just went right to her and ran right on out,” Aaron Kurkowski, the store manager, told the news.

The kitten is still up for adoption. They have added the requirement that you be a law-abiding citizen with "a lot of love" in your heart.

Read morea at NBC Washington