FedEx driver’s video provides clues to teen crime wave

AKRON » Jim Cool crouched in his Firestone Park driveway on Tuesday to help three kids fill two flat tires on a bicycle.

Cool didn’t know the teens. Young people in the Akron neighborhood often stop and ask Cool for help with their bikes when they see him working on cars in a garage next to his house.

Until now, Cool has always helped.

But Cool said Thursday that’s over. He found out one or more of the kids with the bikes Tuesday might be responsible for a neighborhood crime wave.

A FedEx driver posted a video of the three on his Facebook page, saying he witnessed them steal a package he delivered to a Firestone Park home the day before. The driver, Caleb Layer, wrote that he followed the teens for about 20 minutes taking a video with his phone. Layer’s video never shows the three teens with the alleged stolen package or doing anything illegal.

“Since (police) likely will not do anything, I want to spread this on social media so the community is aware of these thieves,” Layer, who declined to comment for this story, wrote on his Facebook page.

By Thursday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than 242,000 times, leading other Firestone Park residents to call police reporting several crimes, including a family who said they own the bike in the video with the flat tire.

They said they believe the bike was stolen from their East Ralston Avenue garage shortly before the teens showed up at Cool’s house around the corner.