Thief's 'smirk' prompts Y'town cop to replace boy's Christmas gift

YOUNGSTOWN

It wasn’t just that someone stole a 5-year-old’s Christmas present from a Brownlee Woods front porch last week that upset city police officer Joe Wess.

It was the smirk on the face of the person who did it.

So Wess, on his own, replaced the toy and delivered it Wednesday to a home on Bellfield Avenue. The presentation was captured on the homeowner’s security system, which he later uploaded to Facebook to thank Wess.

Since then, the post has gone viral, shared hundreds of times, including on the Facebook page of a Cleveland television station.

The 27-year-old Wess, who has been on the force for more than three years and is the son of a longtime officer, said he took the report after being called there Monday about the theft, which happened Friday.

The homeowner, Brian Koeppen, showed Wess security footage of the theft of the toy, a Hot Wheels Roto Revolution racetrack. As Koeppen’s children, who knew nothing of the theft, played in the background, Wess said he watched the man take the package and walk off the front porch like he had done something important. Wess said that irked him.

Read more about the gesture in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.