Some crimes hit a nerve, others are barely noticed

Crime has become almost like background noise, easy to ignore unless you’re the victim or unless the crime is so horrendous that it captures everyone’s attention.

But every once in a while a petty criminal comes along and sets a new standard for low and gives everyone a new topic around the water cooler.

And so it is with the story the other day about a woman who first cased the collection jar for a veterans organization outside a Walmart SuperCenter in Austintown and then returned to literally rip it off the tabletop to which it was attached.

Oh, and the would-be victim of the theft was a 78-year-old Army veteran, Angelo Pappalardo, who has been collecting donations for Veterans Outreach for four years.

What, we wonder, does someone plan to do with money stolen from a charitable organization? In this case the charity provides clothing food and eyeglasses for veterans. But over the years there have been other grab-and-go thefts of collection jars for big-name charities and small local efforts to help a neighbor through a medical emergency.

What’s worth stealing for?

If the thief manages to get away, how do they manage to spend that money on whatever it is that they might buy without a tinge of guilt over where they got the money?

Fortunately, in this case, the alleged thief and an accomplice didn’t get away. They underestimated the resolve of Pappalardo, who jumped from his chair and gave noisy chase. And they didn’t count on passersby who realized what happened and foiled their escape.

Their actions are as admirable as the perpetrators are despicable. And that’s the thing that gives this story redeeming value. The thieves were outnumbered.

Two Youngstown women were arrested and Pappalardo’s jar containing $531.28 was recovered.

And a lot of people who read the story or saw it reported on TV were incensed. The story touched a nerve.

Different days, different stories

One of the interesting things about the news business is how a story about the theft of a jar containing $531 and change can generate so much heat, but a story about the theft of $1.3 million from a trucking company gets only cursory notice.

The lives of far more people were affected by the embezzlement for which Scott and Linda Adair of Canfield were convicted. And a photograph in Friday’s paper of their household belongings being auctioned to satisfy their debt showed a table filled with some of life’s most unnecessary things. Even as someone might wonder how a thief could buy anything with cash from a collection jar, looking at the photo array of the stuff the Adairs accumulated, the question begged to be asked: “They stole to buy that?”

The story of one theft inspires outrage. The story of a theft 2,500 times larger is little more than a curiosity. Unless, we suspect, you are one of the victims.