A man walked into a Ritchie Highway computer store Monday morning, tucked a fax machine modem under his coat and walked out, escaping in a 1980 Toyota driven by another person, county police said yesterday.
Eric Kilponen, 31, the manager of CompUSA in the 6600 block of Ritchie Highway, told police the man came into the store shortly after 10:30 a.m. and took an Ace fax modem from a display. When the man hid the modem under his coat, Mr. Kilponen asked him to remove it, but the man ran from the store, police said. Mr. Kilponen told police the man jumped into a Toyota driven by someone else. The car sped west across the parking lot, but Mr. Kilponen got the tag number and gave it to police.