Animal shelter captures bumbling ‘gumball bandit’ on video

Sacramento police are searching for a man dubbed the “Gumball Bandit” after his struggle to steal a gumball machine from an animal shelter was captured in a widely shared video.

Front Street Animal Shelter shared surveillance footage of the suspect, adding their own subtitles and including the hashtag “SacramentosDumbestCriminals.”

“The Gumball Bandit faced many trials and tribulations when he broke into our shelter and stole our fund-raising gumball machine,” the shelter posted on its Facebook page last week. “But don’t feel too sorry for this candy crook, he did just steal from a shelter after all.”

The man appears to enter the shelter through a doggie door and struggles to push the gumball machine through the same entrance, spilling gumballs everywhere and later slipping on them.

Video subtitles note that the suspect started picking up about a dollar in quarters from the ground.

“What a baller. (A gum baller),” the subtitles read.

The man then tries to pry open the machine’s quarter compartment. The shelter pointed out that the bandit ignored a donation box filled with cash sitting a few feet away.

“Suspect has a stroke of genius, realizing buildings sometimes have more than one door,” another subtitle reads. The man left through another door, throwing the machine over a barbed wire fence.

The video has been shared more than 12,000 times.

The incident happened a little after 5 a.m. on March 7, according to Eddie Macaulay, a detective with the Sacramento Police Department. Police responded to the shelter after receiving a call about the theft.

“There have been no arrests made, but it is an active and open investigation,” Macaulay said. “We encourage anybody who knows the identity of the person to contact the Police Department because we’d like to speak to them.”

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

Twitter: @Brittny_Mejia