This guy is a piece of crap

You gotta wonder what is going through a person’s mind when they commit a larceny. There are your run-of-a-mill thieves who steal because they were brought up in a family surrounding where it was okay to steal lobster tails, make up, large screen TVs and all sorts of stuff.

When I was a plain clothes security guard for 30 years, I nailed everyone from the rich to the poor, the judge, cop, politician, teacher, NBA coach’s wife, old and young. With thousands of arrests (yes, 1000s) only a small handful of cases did the shoplifter ever admit it was the first time they had done such a thing. I even caught the same guy twice and he swore he had never shoplifted before.

I decided to hang up the handcuffs several years ago when I started seeing the common thief profile begin to change. Yes, we still have the stupid person stealing the small items, but mixed in are the gangs. Professional shoplifters on drugs will either quickly surrender when confronted, or begin a situation where injuries can and will happen.

I was hospitalized several times and on one occasion, for a neck injury as the result of an encounter with pros. What has changed over the years is the attitude of “kill or be caught” some gangs profess. Mix in the diseased blood of HIV and Hepatitis and a security guard/cop must think twice while doing battle to take someone into custody.

This leads me to the real reason behind this editorial. Here is a whole family of real stupid. On October 16th, 2012, a man was in the Palmyra Museum on Market Street and stole a “fake” scrimshaw valued at about $35. According to Palmyra Museum Director Bonnie Hays, “This tooth was a donation to replace the original tooth from 1840 and part of our collection that was stolen by two of his brothers Ken and Roy Ortiz in 2006. This original tooth was priceless and when asked to place a value on it, it was impossible since it was one of a kind and could never be replaced.”

The scrimshaw was a fake, but the guy who stole it was the real thing. Michael Ortiz, age 41, of 401 Frederick Douglas Street in Rochester, was last arrested in Wayne County in 2006 for stealing items from the Wayne County Museum in Lyons. He was sentenced to a year in jail, but that was considered just a hazard of the job. His job, along with several members of his family, is to steal museum artifacts and sell them on the “open” market.

Last Friday, Ortiz was charged with Petit Larceny and Criminal Impersonation in the Palmyra Museum thefts. Wayne County District Attorney Rick Healy said he will push to see that Ortiz gets another year in jail, the maximum for a misdemeanor charge.

Luckily, area museums talk to each other and have tried to keep a lid on the Ortiz family and their shenanigans.

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