It’s not often you see a mascot get hauled away in handcuffs, but that’s the exact scene that went down at a Florida Chuck E. Cheese this week, as onlookers watched police restrain the restaurant’s iconic anthropomorphic rodent.
On Wednesday, officers descended on a Tallahassee Chuck E. Cheese on reports of a stolen credit card, narrowing down the suspected thief to an employee who was inside the costume.
Authorities believe Jermell Jones, who was dressed as the mouse when they arrived, stole a customer’s bank card and used it to make fraudulent purchases.
According to a police report, obtained by E! News, the owner of the bank card had used the card during her daughter’s birthday party at the location last month. When she noticed some fraudulent charges, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
The documents allege she visited one of the locations that showed up in her irregular bank statements and obtained surveillance footage of a man making one of the purchases. She “immediately recognized the suspect as an employee at Chuck E. Cheese,” the documents say.
When police arrived at the children’s pizza joint, Jones was handcuffed and escorted to a patrol car. He denied having anyone’s bank cards and claimed he didn’t know anything about the fraudulent purchases.
Police later found a stolen bank card in their search, as well as a receipt allegedly matching one of the reported purchases.
In total, investigators said the 41-year-old racked up US$105.57 in fraudulent charges.
Photos and footage of the arrest have lit up the internet, with many questioning why police didn’t have Jones remove the costume before he was placed under arrest.
“Ok, Tallahassee Police Department, y’all couldn’t let this man change out of his Chuck E. Cheese costume before arresting him in front of those kids?” one Facebook user wrote while sharing photos of the incident.
TPD spokesperson Alicia Hill told the Tallahassee Democrat that officers had hoped to lead Jones out of the restaurant without placing him in handcuffs.
“When they approached him, he immediately tenses up and resists, and so at this point they make the decision to put him in handcuffs, keeping in mind the safety of not only the customers, but the suspect, as well as the officers themselves,” Hill said. “It is unfortunate that the person who is subject of this investigation and who we had probable cause on happened to be … in costume.”
Jones was charged with three felonies — theft of a credit card, criminal use of personal identification information and fraudulent use of a credit card over two times within six months, the Tallahassee Democrat reports.