Theft sparks fury in military town

It was a crime that ordinarily would attract no attention at all in a city of 400,000: the smashing of a window, the theft of a bag from a rental car parked outside a buffet restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colo.

But the bag belonged to a young widow, and it contained the belongings of her husband, an airman who died last month in Afghanistan -- including a laptop bearing photos of him with his infant daughter, born weeks before his death; a watch his parents gave him for Christmas; and most significant to his mother, the dog tags he was wearing when he was killed.

“They were the last things he touched,” said Paula Smith of Troy, Ill., weeping softly into the phone. Her son, Senior Airman Bradley Smith, was 24.

His belongings vanished Feb. 9 when the Smiths’ rental car was broken into after they arrived for a memorial service in Colorado Springs.

In the military town, home to the Army’s Ft. Carson, Peterson Air Force Base and the Air Force Academy, word spread quickly about the incident, sparking expressions of fury against the perpetrators and consternation that such a thing could happen to a family already devastated. Soldiers said they would comb the streets in case the stolen belongings had been tossed out a window; politicians called, volunteering their assistance.

Bradley Smith was a gardening manager at a home improvement store in Illinois who joined the Air Force in 2006 and was assigned to the 10th Air Support Operations Squadron, based in Ft. Riley, Kan. In Afghanistan, he worked with a Ft. Carson unit, directing air attacks.

When a bomb detonated Jan. 3 on a mission in the Kandahar province and killed two soldiers, Smith and an Army medic, Spc. Brian R. Bowman, volunteered to retrieve one of the bodies.

They were carrying their fallen comrade back to the helicopter when another bomb exploded, killing them both. Bowman, from Crawfordsville, Ind., also was 24.

Two weeks ago, Smith’s family brought some of his belongings to Colorado. After the memorial service, his wife, Tiffany Smith, intended to take them with her when she traveled to her family’s home in San Diego.

Soon after arriving in Colorado Springs, they stopped at a restaurant for lunch. When they came out an hour later, the window was broken, the bag gone.

“It’s like opening a wound and pouring alcohol in it,” Paula Smith said.

Authorities soon arrested one man, Denard Thompson, 29, and issued an arrest warrant for another, Dwain Boyd, 22. Authorities initially kept news of the arrest quiet, hoping to recover the stolen property, but so far that hasn’t happened.

At home in Illinois, the Smiths keep hoping that the bag will turn up, perhaps in a pawnshop, perhaps elsewhere.

“We’re just asking . . . look on the side of the road. If they see a black bag, it’s just a zippered bag, large enough to hold two computers,” Paula Smith pleaded, her voice dissolving again into tears. “We’re just asking.”

Correll writes for The Times.