WATCH: Missouri Woman Tracked Stolen Harris-Walz Campaign Signs and Confronted the Thieves on Camera
A Springfield, Missouri woman got tired of having her Harris-Walz signs stolen from her lawn, so she used an Apple AirTag to track the thieves — and then she confronted them on camera.
OzarksFirst — a local Fox affiliate — reported on Laura McCaskill’s mission to find out who was taking her lawn signs after four of them were stolen from her yard. Her partner John put an Apple AirTag on their newest sign, which was then stolen, and they eventually got a hit on a residential address in Nixa. The two went to the address to confront the person with their evidence and a woman answered the door:
“She finally came up and we said hello, and we said we think that you have something in that car that was taken from our neighborhood,” McCaskill said. “She said, that was her son’s car and she said, ‘Well, he’s just an idiot’ and then she goes back in and we thought that was interesting.”
McCaskill showed the young man on her phone that the AirTag was nearby and McCaskill says he says it was in the trunk.
“I expected to find the AirTag, but not 59 signs. It was kind of like finding a dead body. It was like are you kidding me? Most people, they take them and they throw them in a dumpster or they throw them in someone else’s yard. It was like there was a bounty on [the signs],” McCaskill said.
Not only did MacCaskill find the person responsible, she also got the confrontation on video and posted their testy exchange online. The mother of the man who took the signs can be seen grabbing a bunch of the signs from the trunk of the car and saying, “Here you go, liberals.” When John says, “It’s more than that, actually,” she responds, “No, it’s not. It’s so stupid. Just go vote.”
John also explained: “It’s a bigger deal than you’re making it out to be. I mean, obviously it’s important or you wouldn’t have taken your time to take these.” The man who apparently stole the signs tried to defend himself: “No, I mean, honestly, it’s just, I saw it on TikTok. I saw a guy that, apparently, he filled his house up with some buddies. And I’m not saying it was right or anything.”
McCaskill filed a police report, and others in the neighborhood planned to do the same. OzarksFirst reached out to Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson, who cited Missouri state law regarding the theft of political signs on private property. Missouri Statute 115.637 says:
Class four election offenses. — The following offenses, and any others specifically so described by law, shall be class four election offenses and are deemed misdemeanors not connected with the exercise of the right of suffrage. A conviction for any of these offenses shall be punished by imprisonment of not more than one year or by a fine of not more than two thousand five hundred dollars or by both such imprisonment and fine[.]
Offense 19 says:
Stealing or willfully defacing, mutilating, or destroying any campaign yard sign on private property, except that this subdivision shall not be construed to interfere with the right of any private property owner to take any action with regard to campaign yard signs on the owner’s property and this subdivision shall not be construed to interfere with the right of any candidate, or the candidate’s designee, to remove the candidate’s campaign yard sign from the owner’s private property after the election day.
Also noted was the monetary aspect of the signs which were obtained after a $20 donation, making the total monetary value of those 59 signs $1,180 — and the man who stole the signs apparently was aware of the threshold that separated his alleged misdemeanor from becoming a felony:
She told the man it’s in violation of the law, and his response was to bring up the financial threshold before the theft becomes a felony, mentioning Harris/Walz supporters can get the signs for “three or four dollars” on Etsy.
“I was like, who would look that up? It seemed like he felt like in his head he had an idea on the threshold of how he wouldn’t get in trouble,” McCaskill said. “This is disturbing because he actually had a thought process of what that limit was.”
OzarksFirst asked McCaskill how she would have reacted if her own son had stolen Trump-Vance signs: “If my son stole Trump signs, I would hold him accountable and have him deliver and do yard work for those people. I would be horrified if he did that. I would say, this is really wrong and you need to return their signs. It’s respecting your neighbors, respecting their First Amendment rights.”
Watch the video above via KOLR10 & Fox49 on YouTube.
