Doorbell Camera Captures Thief Stealing Insulin Pump From Cambridge Home
CAMBRIDGE (CBS) — A Cambridge man had his new insulin pump stolen from the front steps of his home. The victim thinks his life-saving device could now just be sitting in a dumpster.
In surveillance footage, one man says "grab that" and the other man does, clearly unaware he's on camera.
The victim, who only wanted to be identified as Stephen, said watching the incident "blew his mind."
He was traveling at the time, and his automatic insulin pump had broken. Meaning Stephen, who has Type 1 diabetes, had to manually inject insulin every two hours.
"It's all short acting stuff so I have to constantly be taking shots the whole time when I don't have the pump so it's pretty painful," Stephen said.
He had another pump shipped overnight to his Cambridge home, where his plan to use it was thwarted by two package thieves.
When Stephen returned from his business trip, his special delivery was nowhere to be found, even while neighbors indicated they'd seen the package the day before. So Stephen scoured the video from his doorbell cam.
"You don't think twice about something like that in this area," he said. "It was shocking, it was infuriating."
He reported the theft to police and learned that his Chauncey Street neighborhood is among the three worst in Cambridge for such things since the first of the year. But police say doorbell cameras are becoming a tremendous tool.
"You look at the clarity of this video in particular and we have a pretty good sense of who it could be," said Cambridge Police spokesman Jeremy Warnick.
Stephen is still trying to sort out who will foot the bill for the incident. He hopes the thief is caught, but wouldn't be surprised if his expensive pump wound up in a dumpster.
"It puts a huge onus on him to try now to run away with a $5,000 device," he said. "What is he going to do with that thing?"
Stephen admits a lesson learned, about how and when packages get delivered to his home.
"I'd like to ask my neighbors to help keep an eye out for everybody to make sure this doesn't happen again," he said.
In the meantime, he hopes someone recognizes the thief's face and contacts Cambridge Police.
