It takes a certain kind of boldness to steal from an animal rescue organization. It takes an even more specific kind of audacity to do it while that same rescue team is out in the field saving animals from a wildfire. And yet, that is exactly what happened to the Inland Valley Humane Society this week, and the surveillance footage to prove it is making people furious across social media.
The theft went down Wednesday night while staff from the organization’s Pomona and San Gabriel campuses were actively responding to the Grand Fire in Chino Hills. While those crews were out there wrangling animals to safety in the middle of a wildfire, someone back at the San Gabriel campus was doing some wrangling of their own. The target? The nonprofit’s white stake bed truck, a workhorse vehicle that had been part of the organization’s fleet for over two decades.
What makes this story sting even more is how coordinated the whole operation appears to have been. This was not someone stumbling onto an unlocked vehicle and taking a chance. Surveillance footage captured what looks like a three-person crew with two cars working in tandem. One vehicle dropped off the person who would steal the truck, the other pulled up to act as a lookout, and within seconds, both cars and the stolen truck took off in the same direction. Seven seconds. That is roughly how long the whole thing took once it was in motion…